Well, here we sit with less than 100 hours to our departure time, so I thought it's about time to get our thread up to keep y'all updated and drooling about our upcoming trip to some (hopefully) 90+ degree weather.

We've have internet access available while we're gone, so we'll be sure to post some pix of a nice warm tropical locale with some bluewater fishing thrown in

Here's the current weather for where we're at:
(it's currently down, but will hopefully be back soon!)



And the resort we'll be at our first half of the stay even has a live cam ... we'll make sure to run down there one night right at 6PM so we can wave to everyone!




Depending upon your browser settings, you may have to refresh this page to see a new image!

Just in time after the big cold snap and the yucky thaw we're gonna have in its wake!

Hey....are those snow clouds that I see in the distance there?

Thats pretty cool man, you and Corey have a good time...
and work on that tan so that we can tell when you are wearing a white shirt or not when holding the fish!!!

later
trlo lol

Trav

Bob,
You guys get the margueritas and we get the slush.
Hows that work again?
Oh yes, I remember now. First you fish your brains out on brats (with a snoppy rod no less) while the rest of us peons are still trying to catch our first fish. Then, as if to heap insult on injury, you make catching an early nate look easy enough that even a young lady in a Santa hat could catch one. Not to mention your complete lack of compassion as you coldly back us off with your tater gun and high tail it south to suck up coco locos with FishGal and let the nates stack up in your front yard.
If I didn't know better, I'd think you were a Huskie.

Hope you guys have a restful and wonderful vacation.

Mas pescado, por favor!

Bob, You and Corey can post your picture here;

http://www.bucuti.info/gallery/honeymoons

if you don't want to stand in front of the video camera.

No can do SHM ... legally, we didn't have enough advance warning of our trip to tie THAT knot Fishgal already checked into that one!

I wonder if they have Snoopy Rod Marlin Tournaments Mooch??

Sounds like a nicer locale than this year's venue!

Happy Trails to US...Until me meet again...

That would be almost as cool as the tropical island beach I got married on!

Sandy beach, Pirates Cove, Suemez Is. Ak. (uninhabited) beautiful 85 degree afternoon, awesome!

I can just picture a gaggle of big Bertram's and Grady Whites going at each other trying to net each others Blue. Or how about Sparkey strapped in on his knees in the fighting seat with Bob keeping the others at bay with a mango gun? Sure would like to see that on video!
This could be the start of something really big. Anybody know a good source for a Snoopy fighting harness?

By the way Capt. Bob, ever performed a wedding on the barge?
It might be a nice additional service to provide. I'm sure there are guys out there that could be more easily enticed by their lady if they got a fishing trip out of the deal. And think of all the repeat anniversary business you'd get.

I just returned from Puerto Vallarta. Didn't fish, but I have to admit that I enjoyed watching the Seattle weather reports in my swimsuit.

Oh I'll bet you did!!!

No weddings yet on board Although we do a lot of Honeymoon trips for our AK end of things ... glad we have some nice cabins instead of a tent camp though ... don't think that would go over really well with the ladies

Our last post from home base ... next stop, Seattle

Enjoy the sun and rest those rowing arms. The big natives will be waiting your return.

Just a quick HI from Sea-tac on this cool wireless network in the airport ... damn there are a few advantages in the big city

Next stop tonight, St Louis!

Yes Bob the wireless and bluetooth does have it's advantages. My wife hates some of it though as I take my laptop with me everywhere these days. Have fun on your vacation, looks like a great place your going. Some sun sure sounds nice about now.

oh man, time changes suck ... 2:15 AM on our computer time (PST) running off to the St Louis airport again for our flight to Miami

We're here!!

Fishgal has already she's not leaving! Although there was a moment this morning, our first to actually lay on the beach (we arrived late yesterday afternnon) that I thought she had enough. Not five minutes after we laid down, one of those tropical squalls moved through ... she WAS NOT happy! But we're frying in the sun right now!

Awesome food, Fishgal started the trip off with about 1 1/2 pound Carribean Lobster tail last night ... I had the Captain Kid's jumbo prawns ... a spicy white sauce on top of jumbo prawns! How 'bout a 1/3 of a pineapple. cubed and sauteed with cloves & thyme covered with ice cream & whipped cream for dessert!

This was at the Pirate's Nest at the Buctui, food was good. Most people's service was too, bt we had the waiter from hell. Not sure if the fact we didn't order drinks with our AGA dine-around card had anything to do with it.

Serious eating to start tonight though, first visit to Texas de Brazil and I'm ready!

Some pix from our first day:

Corey, just moments after landing and clearing customs -



Bob's first chore after getting in from a cool St Louis morning was to use the zip-off feature of the tropical pants!



We must have this top down! Car rental from Economy rental ... no problems with our rental when we arrived. Samurai was ready to go! We sent emails before left looking for good rate on 11 day rental and they quoted us the best price ... $500 for the 11 days.



Palm Trees & Coconuts everywhere (although they are NOT "native" trees)



Our little friend outside the room



Our first Aruba sunset!



Hope that weather's nice back home! We'll post some pix ... hopefully some fisheys soon!

Blah, Blah, Blah, Well I guess you've earned yourselves a nice vacation. I'M NOT JEALOUS>

Nice Pics Bob, definately better shorts weather than our trip just over a week ago!

Make sure you eat at Marandi one night, best food on the island!

I'm dying just looking at those pictures. Just think, little under two weeks ago we were freezing our tails off on the Bogey in the SRC. You pack the spud gun along or would that be a Pineapple gun?
Have fun and enjoy the sun, can't wait for Cabo in April!

Kev

Beautiful pics Bob, does make a guy jealous. Where the hell is Aruba? I'm not much of a world traveler and have never heard of it. Is it in the Caribbean?

HH ... We're about 20 miles off the coast of Venezuela in the southermost part of the Carribean.

http://www.aruba-tours.com/map.html

Gonna lots more pix to share ... just got back from the casino playing "Fishey" games and my luck wasn't too bad

Were supposed to fish with some people from PA tomorrow, but they had to fly home unexpectedly ... so we'll likely play some golf and then get some fishing in later in the stay!

Low blows in the middle of winter, we've been on the recieving end for many a years ... so it's time for a little payback

Hi Bob(: It's your beautiful sister in law(: I had to write and thank you for the awesome candy bar that I didn't need! It reminded me of making smores, when we were trying to find a name for Benjamin(: I miss you guys and wish I were there, but I'm not. Instead I'm here in Alaska freezing...it's -14
Enjoy your trip and give fishgal a kiss!
p.s. Mya loved the pictures of you!

Start practicing, Bob...

"Marlin On! Marlin On! Marlin On!"

Looks like a fun trip so far! Very nice!

Yeah enjoy Bob and Corey. Still kicking myself and my wife in the butt for not coming with you guys. We will definately be ready next year. Good thing I didn't come along anyways I would of run the island out of beer. HAHA. Not missing much here. Raining and the rivers are in and out. Lots of fish moving up though. See you soon.

She lets you do that huh?

My wife would kick me right back... and not nessessarily in the butt!

I guess our timing to leave couldn't have been better Pat

Been having a ball the past few days ... got some more pix to share, but I'll have to break it up into a couple of posts so I don't go over the pic limit on a post!

We've got more lizards outside our room:



We thought this was some sort of an Eagle, but the locals call it a falcon, and we got to watch him munch one of the gazillions of birds outside the Bucuti:



A look at the high-rise hotels from the California lighthouse (we'll have pix of that later) ... we're in the low-rise area at the furthest point in the picture:



A view of the Tierra del Sol golf course, I'll be getting a round or two in here in a few days



Plunking Aruba style! They have rod holders set up on the beac and then send suspended baits out with the use of a balloon on the water's surface and let the trade winds carry it out to sea. No fisheys caught while we watched the sunset:

Aruba sunset #2 We're going to try to get a pic every night! In this one, you can see a giant freighter likely headed for the Panama canal:



And we talked about Texas De Brazil ... this place is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We sat on the private balcony for two located just above the reindeer in the pic. They start you with a Brazillian cheese bread and then you get a pass (or two) through the giant hot & cold salad bar area:



Next you have a dual-sided card, put it on green and they start bringing you 13 kinds of skewered meats ... the regular and garlic pichana was our fave, although I also enjoyed the parmesan-crusted pork loin too:



Oh yeah, our first night at the casinos ... we started at the Excelsior at the Holiday Inn because they were supposed to have single zero roulette, but we never saw a table with it. Their slots did not seem to be paying well, so we went over to the Wyndham and Corey did just fine with this 16 times 30 payout on the quater machine:



I got sick of feeding money into the quater machines, so I had to try one of those "Reel 'em In" nickel; video slots that you can bet a bunch of credits on. Wow, jackpot!! $200 on the nickel machine ... need that luck on the bigger denomination ones!

back on the beach to do some frying yesterday ... oh no, Fishgal has the red flag up! What does that mean??



That means we get lunch on the beach



Afternoon rolled around and it was time to try out our Snorkeling gear at Baby Beach ... too cool!



Lots of cool fisheys!!!! A late edit as we finally got a book to tell us what these all are: a juvenille French Angelfish



Not sure what this was:

More fish!! A rainbow parrotfish:



I believe this is a juvenille damselfish:



We got a new room at the Bucuti ... although we liked the garden side, now we have the same view as the cam at the top of the thread!



Some notes on the Bucuti: nice and quiet. Staff is very freindly and eager to please. We were offered champagne at arrival but being non-drinkers, they brought was an endless uplly of ice water as we checked in. Our first room was 215 on the ground floor, garden vew. We liked this a lot because we could lay out on the lounge chairs right outside out room. When we moved to 237 upstairs (better view of ocean from room) ... we didn't have this option. A/C on in room all the time, so always cool when we got back. I think the listed rate was $240 plus taxes ... we got a better deal through MCM Tours. Ended up about $225 a night with the 18% tax.

Quiet here, lots of room on the beach too ... always a hut open. Would do again in a heartbeat!

Had an always good dinner at Tony Roma's at then headed off for a show at the Allegro casino. Lip-synched "Grease", but almost so bad that it was funny! I'll get my pix with the showgirls before i go!!

More casino action last night, but I'll post pix of that later. A cloudy day today, so we're going shopping!

Fishing on Sat, the fella we were suppossed to go with bailed on the trip as he had to fly home, so we just gotta wait a bit.

Are you coming back Bob?

LOL Jerry!

Looks like fun, lots of Damselfish, Parrot fish and tangs I see.


That Falcon is way cool!

Yikes, watch out for those gnarly cactus by the beach, wouldnt want to get drunk and wander into those!

Not sure yet Jerry, if we keep the same luck in the casino, we might not have too

Pat, a couple of breweries and distilleries on the Island, you're set to go.

We'll post some more pix soon

Summers in alaska chasing big fish, winters on the beach chasing nothing in particular, fishing the OP inbetween, tough duty but I guess someone has to do it so all the rest of us realize just how much our life SUCKS!!!

Have a great time!

Nice pics Bob! Thanks for sharing

I'm going to start a part II of this so we can share pix and reviews without having to download all these pix again if you've already seen them