Tuesday found us back at the Bucuti for breakfast to use one of the last of our AGA meal plan tickets for breakfast (this was a pretty good deal overall, I’d recommend it. We bought the 5 breakfast and four dinner version). It was nice to see some of the familiar faces from earlier in our stay ... simply super people! Also nice to hook-up to that Wi Fi access to grab emails as well!

Corey gave Paco a goodbye scratch on the head:



Next off, we headed off to the De Palm Pier to board the Tranquillo with Capt. Anthony for a snorkeling cruise:



Just a few people on board, and not too expensive. I think it was $45 a head with our Aruba Plus card. Met some great folks from Nebraska that have been coming here for years. Too funny, we ended up going to the outer portion of the Spanish Lagoon for our snorkel site which we had done the inner portion of a few days earlier on our own.



A neat trip down though, nice to just putt along the coast on a great day. The drift snorkel was a nice experience and it was a little deeper than the other snorkeling we have done thus far so it was a good stepping stone for Corey who doesn’t handle heights well. A nice touch was the stop and dingy run to Anthony's Mom's house to pick us up lunch!

A shallow part of the drift snorkel:



And sticking my head up, I was amused by the crabs chasing one another around:



We decided to do sunset from in front of our studio. We’ve been watching the pelicans making the wreck of the Debby II a mass gathering place so we though it would be neat to do a sunset over the rusting hull with the birds. Sunset #9:



I don’t know which we found more enjoyable, the sunset or the find of the fact that we were living on top of the world’s biggest hermit crab population on “our beach”. As far as you could see …



We decided to do the much heralded Iguana Joe’s for dinner tonight. After seeing some big crowds at lunch while shopping we were a little worried about the no reservation policy, but we were seated right away.

This place lived up to the hype. We didn’t do anything special for the appetizer, just mozza sticks, but they were good as mozza sticks go. Also had the split-bowl soup … both sides were incredible! I had the Combo rib platter … half std. ribs (recipe from the Caribbean’s best rib place, they claim) and half jerk-style. Awesome … plenty on the plate as well. Good side veggies to boot.

Corey tries one of their “Not an Ordinary Burger”or something like that … and it was certainly not ordinary. Reminded me of a place called Bonni-Lynn’s in West Linn, Oregon that made some of the best & biggest burgers that I’ve run across!

A neat atmosphere, we sat at the rail over the main drag and got to do lots of people watching … including this fella who just moments later got the third degree form the local “Polis”. He offered us some “Ganja” as we drove past him earlier … happened just twice on our trip … had to explain to my Alaskan companion what Ganja was!



Wednesday was Bob’s day … I got to plan it all!

The start of “my day” looked innocent enough; this is a little different boat than we’ve been on before:



Hmm, there’s something about being strapped in:



Here’s a new view of Aruba!



A look over the high-rise strip:



Parasailing was a hoot … even if it did scare the hell out of Corey just watching me up there while she rode in the boat. No problem finding a ride. We went back to De Palm Pier and before we got onto the beach we had a fella asking us if we needed beach chairs (I guess some folks come here without staying at the hotels and rent chairs and other beach stuff to lay out here and people watch). We told him no and that we wanted to parasail and no problem, he led us right up to a booth to sign up.

$40 seems to be about the going rate … generally about 15 minutes in the air. I don’t know if I got lucky or not by having a fella that seemed to perhaps one-up the other operators by seeing just how high he could get me. I honestly think I was was about twice the height of most others I saw out there at the time.

Corey snapping pix as I’m the one reeled in this time!



It’s a weird sensation, a little unnerving, but quite the rush as well. Make sure to take your camera up … if you don’t want to get wet, you won’t. You launch and land on a deck on the back of the boat.

After parasailing, we went back and changed to head up to Tierra del Sol for a round of golf. If you play after 12 PM, it’s $100 pp … and $35 for club rental, of course, cart & range balls included.



I wasn’t aware that this was a stop on the Senior Tour, but the folks from Nebraska on the snorkeling cruise said that it was.

A very nice course … of Robert Trent Jones II design. Perhaps a little rough around the edges to me in not being as lush many of the nicer courses I played in wetter areas. Quite challenging though, the breeze is a factor but not overwhelming as I expected it might be. Somewhat of a target course, with tons of bunkers (tiny shells / pieces in the sand), a little water on a few holes, lots of undulations & mounding, and greens far trickier than I’ve been playing in Alaska in recent years.

For the first time, I got to experience the ParView system: each of Tierra del Sol’s golf carts is equipped with a satellite dish and a 10.4” color screen. Some of the features include graphic hole and green overviews; exact distancing from the cart to the center of the green; exact pin placement for each day; electronic scoring; two-way communication with the clubhouse; food and beverage ordering from the cart to the grill and pro tips.

Got to see loads of wildlife on the course: birds, including these wild parrots:



lizards and iguanas everywhere:



and of course, more goats & even some rabbits.

A nice touch were the iced wet towels we were greeted with at the end of our round. You’ll also get a free bag tag, ball markers, and a repair tool with your round.

Sunset #10 … where did we go? We decided with the desert / beach theme with our round of golf, we’d follow with a similar theme for our pic below the lighthouse right on the beach. Pictures worth a thousand words, I’d say so!



Lobster dinner tonight for Bob … Buccaneer was on tap:



Somewhat out of the way, but easy to find with a flyer for them you’ll find at many of the brochure racks you’ll run across.

Food was good overall: started with lobster bisque and shrimp cocktail. I had the lobster dinner with a nicely-sized broiled tail that was far better than what we had at the Pirate’s Nest and Corey had the crab-stuffed prawns, they were decent, but nothing special.

Desert menu was lacking, so we split the small mousse and then ran to Baskin-Robbin’s for our real dessert.

But I’d recommend trying it … service was good and the aquariums in the restaurant were too cool! The big aquarium also had sea turtles in addition the fish … I’d try to sit by the big one even though the 12 smaller ones would work nicely too. Prices weren’t bad … I think about $60 or so for the two of us.



Oh my, Thursday … the power day of all power days!

A little late getting up in preparation for our day. But we decided to do one more breakfast at the Bucuti since we had one last breakfast ticket (had to have some more of that great bacon!) and I needed to get some important emails out as well.

After breakfast, we made a mad dash back to Sunset Blvd. Studios to drop off my laptop (we don’t leave such things in a convertible now do we?) and then back down the beach for a little Jetskiing. I’ve done it a few times, but not in a number of years … but it was a first for Corey. She was a natural though with all the years of riding 3 and 4 wheelers and snowmachines in AK. You would have though she was 8 again with all the giggling I heard coming from her ride.

$45 for a half hour is going rate. It sound like you can barter in some extra time with most operators, but since we were on a tight schedule, we didn’t try. We got ours in front of the Divi, which is the big place to ride from what I saw.



We then headed off for our next adventure: a catamaran trip up to Boca Catalina (near our place) and out to the Antilla wreck (largest wreck in the Caribbean).

We got a chance to run around the Hyatt grounds for a bit before we boarded. Got to see some neat birds:

Toucan Sam!



And a quartet of Macaws … one actually ended up sneaking up on me as I was admiring another and stole the buckle off my belt! I’ll try to get that picture before too much longer, it’s one a still camera that we don’t have back yet.

And just how far away were we?? 1171 miles south of Miami according to this sign, and 3400+ miles from LA. That’s over 4000 miles from Forks and 5000+ from AK from my estimations!



There were just a handful of us on the boat … a far cry from some of the packed boats we saw pull into the area for the same type of trip that we were on.

Corey prepping for a little siesta on the cargo net on the way to our snorkel site:



I’m in the water, waiting for Corey to come down of the ramp to snorkel the waters of Boca Catalina:



Wasn’t really impressed with the snorkeling here … cleaner water elsewhere and not as many fish as we’ve seen in other areas. We did get to watch one pretty decent sized octopus slither around for a bit though.

Finally we were off to the Antilla wreck which is what we really wanted to do. A deep water snorkeling area, it’s about 60 feet down which was a little unnerving for Corey, but it soon became one of her highlights of the trip.

The water was much cleaner out here and with the depth, everything had a little different hue without the white sand on the bottom. The numbers of fish were simply amazing … as was the variety.

The countless small baitfish would cloud around you and you could see bigger fish on the edges of these giant schools:



I finally got the good pic of the trunkfish that we’ve become so attached to …



And a trumpetfish and another one that I still need to up at just to the right of the trumpets tail … it blends quite well.



Had fun coming up from under the birds perched on an exposed piece of the wreck to snap a picture of the Aruban Air Force:



Simply an amazing array of fish … got to see the giant version of the stoplight parrotfish, the rainbow parrotfish. Also finally got to see some Queen Angelfish which we hadn’t seen previously.

The trip wasn’t terribly expensive … only $39 pp as I recall, but I wish we’d been on a longer trip, we only were at the wreck about 30 minutes and I would have liked at least twice that much time myself.

No sunset pic #11 in true form, we made a return trip to Texas de Brazil for dinner (food was even better than last time). Service was very good, but not quite up to the standards that Keith (our waiter) had given us last time … although he was perhaps one of the finest we’ve ever had, anywhere.

Our view of the sunset from the balcony at dinner:

From our final pig-out session at Texas de Brazil, we headed off for the magic show at the Alahambra Casino. We were a little unnerved when we arrived that there were signs as we got into the ticket line that stated “Open seating, no reservations” as we carries with us an email from a “Reservation Agency” that we had made our show plans with prior to our arrival.

The agency had taken small reservation deposits for each of the shows we had gone to and we’d had no problem with it at the other two shows we’d been to at the Allegro. Our concern multiplied greatly when we got to the head of the line and the gal at the ticket booth looked at our printed email and said she knew nothing about this company! Fortunately, Adam, the magician himself happened to be walking by and told his new helper that things were just fine and that it was a new program the show was involved with … we paid our balance and got our tix. We were a little bummed though, that it didn’t save us any sort of a seat … we were stuck in the very upper end of the small theater which didn’t make for a bad view, but was overly warm for our liking. Make sure you show early for the show if you go, you’ll want to sit lower.

The show itself was alright … some of the tricks were a little ho-um, but a few made you scratch your heads as well.

Perhaps the highlight of the show was the comedic sideshow we got from a number of guests from the audience pulled into the show … some funny stuff and almost overshadowed the show’s cast itself!

After the show, we had one last assault planned on the casino. We almost left the Alahambra because it was much warmer than most of the casinos we had been in and it was tough at first to get something cold to drink.

We were happy we stayed though as we did a pretty good number on the high-credit nickel Yahtzee slot machines. I think Corey was had-paid four times of $100-$200 on these machine, and myself three times in the same range:



I think we ended up being up about $500 that night on nickels … we won more on nickels on this trip that we ever have on bigger denomination machines elsewhere (namely our Reno trips). Drinks started coming freely a bit later, and we saw plenty of winners, especially on the dollar machines. I also dumped $100 bill into one of those, doubled my money on first pull and cashed out.

We probably would have played until casino’s closing, but we had a 5 AM wake-up call coming, so we quit about 2:30 AM.

And that 5 AM wake up came early and we finally got a chance to see the sun low on the horizon in a different direction for truly the first time during our stay.

Fishing once again, one last hurrah! This time on the Teaser. A pretty sunrise on the way out:


The water was nice on the way out along Eagle and Palm Beaches, but the waves got pretty big as we headed out into the normal fishing grounds to the NW of the lighthouse. Often 5-6 feet, Corey was certainly glad she wore her Scopolamine patch.

As with the last trip, hardly were the rods popping. We had two good takes and only got one fish hooked up … one amberjack. We actually got this fish directly out from the highrises a ways after the captain came in looking for some softer water.



I felt our Capt. this time around was working a little harder to find something the fish would take. I honestly don’t know the first thing about this type of fishing, but he seemed to adjust his trolling tactics a little more than our Capt. Kenny did on our earlier trip. Varying speed, direction, angle to / from wave chop, etc. Although we didn’t do much better … I had the feeling that he was a little more “scientific” about his approach, something I liken to my own trips.

I was a little disappointed that despite the slow bite that we were back at the dock exactly four hours after we left, the advertised trip time. While I could understand it if we had a later trip going … the boat was still at the marina as we went to the airport later, so I don’t believe he had another trip planned. I always will spend some extra time on the slow days … but not on these trips. We plan on returning and will likely try another boat next time simply because of that fact.

After our quick round of fishing, we headed back to the Sunset Blvd. Studios to move our bags into the office area. Although they needed to get our room ready as it was rented out for the night, the folks there were kind enough to put our luggage in their office while we took in our last afternoon on the island.

Our last planned activity was a aromatherapy massage at Tierra del Sol. A great way to spend our last hours on the island! I don’t know if I fell asleep after our long night or not … but I think I may have actually done so. We did the couples massage where we were on tables next to one another. About $150 or so … actually less than many of the other spas we looked at and had we wanted to, we had full use of the entire spa facility for the day. We’ll definitely be doing that again on our next visit, although I will likely go for a little more intense massage myself, either the sports, or deep-tissue that I’ve always had I the past.

We got to the airport about three hours before our planned departure time. Everything went very smoothly! I was a little surprised by the fine-tooth comb inspection of our rental car, but no problems. Customs was a breeze. It was actually easier to get through to our flight here than many of the domestic flights we’ve been on since 9/11.

Duty free prices were incredible … booze was upper cheap and it cig prices about $12-15 a carton for major US brands.

We had no trouble with the coffee or flavored sugar we’d bought, had no idea if it was going to be an issue or not, but we declared it and nothing was said. Wish we’d bought some more as we’d found some great coffee at the coffee house we visited earlier.

WiFi access at the airport allowed me to get caught up on some emails … but unlike the Setar WiFi we had at the Buctuti ... relaying for my mail server did not work, so I had to send emails through my web browser rather than through my email program as I couldn’t easily find the server settings to change them to send out.



Our last Aruban sunset, #12, was viewed over the wing of our plane as we departed:



Fortunately, our flight to NYC was barely half-full, so we got lots of room to spread out on the long flight north.

We were in shock when we hit the ground in NYC and moved to another concourse in the 11 degree weather and 25 mph winds … what a difference! Unfortunately, our layover timing there really didn’t allow enough time to get a room, so we did our best to do a little sleeping in the airport before we boarded for Seattle at about 7AM.

Uneventful flight home … also a pretty empty plane so we got to spread out again and actually sleep a tad before we touched down at Sea-Tac about 11 AM.

Some thoughts and observations about the trip:

We will be back again, no question.

The people on Aruba were some of the most genuinely friendly people we’d ever met … whether it was the staff at either of the places we stayed, or the gal at the Black Hog Saloon who gave us a ride back to our hotel when our keys went swimming in the paddleboat moat.

I was surprised by the amount of trash you saw in some areas … but I may be overly sensitive to that given I’m usually picking stuff up along the rivers in my line of work. Usually, it was an alcoholic beverage container that was the offender.

We believe that they show change the license plate motto of “One Happy Island” to “One Horny Island”. You have never heard car horns being used so often anywhere. It seems as if islanders don’t wave at one another as they pass by, they honk. You think you’re doing something wrong, but it’s just people saying “Hi” to one another. We got a good laugh on the fishing boat as horns were tooting there whenever someone hooked up within sight of another boat. We laughed even more when we found a whole section in the grocery store of air horns / musical horns for cars!

The wind was welcome … only thing that kept my medium-thick blood from totally boiling. Never really a hassle although many people we met said t wasn’t as windy as normal.

Having a rental was great! We could go anywhere anytime, and parking was a breeze everywhere we went. We enjoyed the soft top, but it did often mean that we were running gear back to our place before another stop … but we came to cherish the sun, and the top was always down!

The highrise area was fun to visit for watersports stuff, but we’re very happy we didn’t stay there … lots of hustle and bustle and not our cup of tea for vacation. Balconies on many places were tiny … big ones at the places we stayed.

We brought our own snorkel gear we bought at www.scubatoys.com … was a little spendy, but I think it sure made a difference enjoying the snorkeling with dry snorkels, more effective fins, and nice goggles than you ever saw for sale there or available for rent. Even though Corey wasn’t too excited about it when we arrived, it turned out to be one of our favorite things to do!

Get a waterproof case for your digital to snorkel with at www.keepitdrycase.com . Allowed me take hundreds of pix underwater to really sort through to get some good ones. Use your flash … pix with it turned out better than without. Image editing programs will remove any color cast you might have and then print out.

Rent the flashlight at the Tunnel of Love … only one you need a light for. Bigger light than you’ll be able to buy and it was actually a hassle to find a flashlight ... we meant to bring one but forgot it.

Bring more film than you’d expect … sunsets are awesome. I brought my tripod to take pix and I’m happy I did.

Aruba Plus card paid off for us, $10 well spent. Just make to sure to take it with you!

Ventaha phone card had good rates, but we could not use it everywhere as we thought we’d be able to.

Many folks ask about Internet access availability … there are cafes everywhere, no problem! But they did look busy much of the time. We often just drove into Bucuti parking area to grab emails with wireless card in laptop (they’re a 802.11b network, but 802.11g cards are compatible) as it’s really hard for me not to check them every other day or so.
We brought six or seven one liter water bottles and filled them nightly and froze them for the next day … worked great! I’m not a big fluid drinker, but you’ll want them if not on an activity where they provide cold drinks.

Tap water is warm everywhere …

People drive one speed or another … really slow, or really really fast! Can’t believe we never saw a wreck. Be careful driving … most cars have pretty good scars on them and I can see why! Be especially careful at traffic rounders.

American money is taken everywhere, once in while you may only get Florins back though. Many places won’t take $50’s and $100’s, so always have some small bills.

Most restaurants don’t refill your sodas for free, something I’m used to.

Get detailed instructions on how to get to Natural Pool if you’re going to drive, the little backtrack to go from Natural Bridge to Natural Pool will leave many lost. I’ve seen threads on BB’s for that very thing.

T-shirts are cheap for gifts for friends, but many pretty low quality. Often 3 for $10. Better grade shirts about $12-$15.

Antilla wreck snorkel is too cool, find some way to do it.

Bring a tube of Neosporin and band-aids, if you get a little shot of reef rash, you want to treat it as soon as you’re out of the water.

Explore some of the snorkel spots on your own ... don’t only do a trip to them with one of the big tours. Many people looked like herded cattle and not having lots of fun, especially those places got to by tour bus.

We noticed a number of people with All-Inclusive bands eating elsewhere … should tell you something. Liked the idea of doing meals whenever we wanted to as well.

No issues at all with drivers license and birth certificate for travel for us.

Things we’d like to do next time that we didn’t do this time include: golf at the “other” course; day trip to Bonaire; more investigation of mangrove areas to see what sort of fish live there; may bring flyrod along to try along these areas, although not huge … some of the se fish look fast on a light rod and it would likely be fun to try to catch a few to release of course! We want to try Snuba; explore more beaches to snorkel (a few looked neat without anyone there); sunset sailboat cruise; catamaran tour to Venezuelan coast; speedboat (Thriller, Screamer) trip; windsurfing lessons (hoped to this trip, but just too much to do!); golf at new 9 hole course going in lowrise area, just laying sod as we left, layout looks very nice; perhaps some swimming / snorkeling on the east side of the island at the "safer" spots (some too rough). I also think it owuld be fun to do the helicpter tour of the island now that we've been around it ... always neat to have a new persepctive of something.

AGA card purchase probably saved us some dough. Depended much upon where you ate. I don’t think you’d want to use it at Buccaneer, but it did save a lot at Pirate’s Nest.

Aruban fast food is American fast food … nice to get our McDonald’s & Taco Bell fixes while we were there.

Sunset Blvd. Apartments was a good call to save some $$ and extend the stay. Don’t cut yourself short on the number of days you spend. If you don’t want / really can’t afford $300 a night, you don’t have to and can get a nice place to stay. We’ve always thought that we’d rather spend our $$$ on activities

We brought way too many clothes. Would bring far fewer next time. Sunset Blvd. Gals would do laundry for us while we gone and fold nicely. Dress is quite casual at all the places we went for dinner. No long pants necessary. Perhaps different at a few more of the really upscale restaurants … but not something we really take in. For $30 a plate, I want some grub, not a tiny piece of meat and a few veggies.

I ate bananas! The long-time curse of mine fishing, I hate them. Their cousin, the plantain was often served at dinner and they were much like a sweet potato.

I’m a ball cap wearer … not many people there were. Felt strange coming from a town where everyone wears caps to almost never seeing them.

Never got sick, water is pure as pure gets with desalination plant, no worries.

Drinks are tiny … beer bottles and cans only about 6 ounces. Don’t want them to get warm before you finish!

English is spoken everywhere. Only place we had any communication problems was at supermarket looking for flashlight, but the gal quickly got someone who spoke English to help us.

We’ll likely think of some more and we’ll add!

I'm trying believe me!

Should have just postponed the few trips I got in theis week and stayed for a whole more week or so!

But then John wouldn't have caught that nice buck the other day

Could certainly have gone home to much worse than the two of us did (8-9 hours in JFK reminded us all too well of that) ... often feel blessed!