Day8 - Goodbyes, Layabout and Anniversary

Saturday, our Texan party had a return flight in the afternoon, so they did some souvenir shopping in the morning and came back to the villa for our final meal as a group.

The last supper!

After dropping Mike, Teresa, Tom and Jen at the airport we returned to the villa to Layabout some more.

Layabouts!

We then decided to head downtown one more time for dinner, after all it we had to celebrate Jean and Ed's 35th wedding anniversary.  So we went upscale and ate at "L. G. Smith's Steak and Chop House", we had a nice table overlooking L.G. Smith boulevard with live music, it was very nice.  So on their anniversary Jean and Ed had "Dinner and Sax".

'The Allens'....35 Years...Diner and Sax

Finally we returned to our villa full and tired, we sat on the balcony for one last evening, we will leave Aruba tomorrow on an early afternoon flight....back to the real world.

Day7 - Water Sports and Food

Friday - We headed down to the high rise area where they have those huge white sand beaches, it is where those of means come to play. Bob and Teresa went Parasailing while Tom and Jen rented a Hobie Cat.  Bob and Teresa had a great time and had some great views from above. Tom and Jen blew the motor in the Hobie and had to be towed in, the main sail ripped in half, it was a good stiff wind this morning.  The picture below is Tom and Jen pursuing the parasail boat with the Hobie.

Teresa and Bob are up there!

We left the beach around noon and headed to the "Palm Beach Hard Rock Cafe" for lunch.  The food was excellent and we timed it perfectly, there was a down poor while we ate.  The locals have a saying  that rings true here, "It never rains in Aruba, but when it rains it rains". We have been discussing our personal 'bucket lists' while we were here, Teresa was able to check one off while at the Hard Rock, but you will have to ask her about it.

Hard Rock Aruba

After lunch we returned to our Villa for a siesta and then some of us decided to go up to Malmok beach to snorkel, the water was a bit churned up from the storm, but there were still plenty of colorful fish to view.  Bob and Fred decided to snorkel from Malmok back to the villa, about 1/2 mile through mostly shallow water, to view the ship wreck out in front of our villa.  It is rather difficult to get to the wreck from shore due to the coral in shallow water.  The water around the wreck was loaded with fish and the currents made it a bit dicey to get in close, we only got a little skinned up getting into shore.

After swimming in the pool and relaxing the rest of the afternoon we went out to eat in a Thai restaurant, "Sawasdee". The food was awesome, we ate until we could eat no more and our bill actually was less than lunch at The Hardrock.  We wallowed back to the villa and the boys sat out on the patio burning a few Cubans for our last night with Tom and Mike.  The Texans head home tomorrow afternoon.

Today (Sat) we plan to finish up our souvenir shopping in the morning an then get the Texans to the airport for their 4:30PM flight.  The rest of us leave at 1:30PM tomorrow.

Day 6 - Lots of Sun, Arashi Beach

(FJJ) First thing in the morning, June and Jean had to take me for a walk to see the "Tracker Jacker" nest they found.  Actually, there is no such thing as Tracker Jacker bees, it comes from the book "The Hunger Games" but we did not know what else to call them.  The nest is a bit bigger than a basket ball and all the bees are on the outside of the nest, it looks quite intimidating, but they did not seem aggressive, but I sure would not poke it with a stick. 

'Tracker Jacker' nest?

After our walk we headed for Arashi beach in the morning, it is about a mile up the coast (NW) from our villa.  It is one of those spectacular white sand Aruba beaches and since it is a bit away from the hotel district it is not the least bit crowded. The snorkeling there is pretty good but you do have to go some distance out from the beach to get into something other than white sand.

Great Snorkling

I snorkeled from Arashi Beach to Malmok beach along the coast, about 1/2 mile, the sea life and snorkeling are spectacular in this area, it goes from very shallow to 20-30 feet deep and has amazing visability since the coast is mostly coral rock with little debris to cloud up the water. On my walk from Malmok back to our villa, I scrounged some more coconuts, we are becoming pretty adept at husking, draining, and getting the meat out of coconuts.

Fresh Coconuts....

After dinner at the villa, we decide to go to San Nicolas for the weekly 'Carubbian' festival.  San Nicolas is at the south eastern end of the island and the home of the world famous 'Charlie's Bar', a bar that nearly everyone visits when they come to Aruba. We stopped in for some rum punch, it was the best we had yet.

Charlie's Famous Bar

The festival itself was something like a street party or 'carnival' as they call it. It has local Arubian food, music and flea market like vendors set up.  It was fun but we did not stay log enough to see the parade of Arubian dancers.

The twins

The last few days have been windy, the sail boards, Hobie Cats and kite boards have been prevalent in front of our villa, achieving some impressive speeds.  Enough so that Tom and Jen  have the bug and plan to rent a Hobie Cat today (Friday), they are experienced sailors.


Today, Friday,  we have no big plans, as I sit here looking out on the ocean at 7AM, it looks like another typical Arubian day, it will start out somewhat cloudy with nice temps, so lots of activity, people running, biking up and down the beach, by noon it will be sunny and hot with a nice ocean breeze, most will migrate to water activities to stay cool. This is Aruba "One Happy Island" as their license plates all say.

Day5 - Chillaxing

(FJJ) Wednesday we mostly chilled, we hung out by the pool and were pretty good a being layabouts.  We did manage a short walk and found a few coconuts that were not all dried up.  After significant effort we got  the husk off and it was pretty tasty.  The evil mermaids even had them in their drinks in the pool, delivered by their Cabana boys.

After lunch Fred, Ed and Bob set out to find the original Aruba Golf Club.....we found it at the very south tip of the island, in a desert, with 1000's of goats, right near the prison. It looked as if no one has been there in 50 years, but much to our surprise, it was actually open, and has a bar.

We have not decided yet if we are going to invest in the $10 greens fees to play this unique course, Bob says it is sure to guarantee a few Kodak moments.

We decided to go downtown for dinner, and some light shopping.

Paddock's restaurant had a all you can eat ribs night for $13.  I am pretty sure we put the hurt on them. Not sure where they get their ribs, the running joke is that there is no shortage of goats on the island, all I can say is that they were tasty.

After dinner the sun was setting (it sets here about 7PM this time of year) and we decided to head up to the California Light House to see if we could catch it.  I was breezy and beautiful. There is a white table cloth Italian restaurant at the light house, after viewing the menu ($$$$) I doubted would get much business, but their parking lot was full, guess people with means do come to Aruba to play.
 



We ended the evening on the balcony watching a light show.  Lightning in the clouds was pretty spectacular, we originally thought it was heat lightning but after we went to bed it really started to bang and it poured, I guess this is typical for this climate.



Thursday some of us plan to do some more snorkeling and some are thinking of renting Hobie's for sailing.

Day4 - Snorkling on Malmok Beach

(FJJ) Tuesday...some walked, some brought our gear in the van, to Malmok beach which is less than a half of a mile up the beach from our villa. It is the same beach that the booze cruise parked in the night before when we were going off the rope swing.  The snorkeling around the coral rock formations is quite good..lots of brightly colored fish.


After the snorkeling June, Jean, Donna, Ed and Fred took a walk about 1.5 miles up to the California light house. Why not, it was bright sunny, about 95F....we had planned to walk back home but upon arriving at the light house we decided to call Tom for a ride back :-).  The view from the light house was spectacular, you can see most of the island, the golf course and panoramic views of the ocean.

 

 

 

 

 

Tourists!

California Light House

We came back hung by the pool burned a few cuban's and Bob made us some great fajitas for dinner.  We had a bit of a mano a mano contest with the hot sauces..Tom and Mike will be hence forth addressed as 'Sir'.

Above and Below the Carribbean - Day 3

Aruba House from the Jolly Pirate

(FJJ) On Monday morning Tom and Jen chauffeured us the Atlantis Submarine, We took a one hour sub ride to a depth of 130ft, it was pretty cool, lots of fish but taking pictures through double paned windows doesn't yield very good results.

Atlantis

Moray Eel

We returned from the depths just in time for lunch in town and then went home to rest up for the evening...good thing we did.

We all booked the evening 'booze cruise' on the Jolly Pirate sailing vessel..to say everyone had a good time is an understatement.

Is that Jack!

Sister Ship to the Jolly Pirate

 

This is why it is called a 'booze cruise'

 

The Jolly Pirate Sunset

Dinner on the beach

After the cruise, dinner and partying at the beach we returned to our villa where the "Evil Mermaids" (June, Jean, &Donna) put on a show of synchronized swimming (it was something) and Bob on the harmonica and Mike on the guitar entertained us into the night.

EFA. The pirates had enough of Fred and ask him to please leave the boat!!!!!!

Jolly Pirates!

JMJ - Jolly pirates for sure! What a fun cruise. Rum punch never tasted so good. Fred is the man, the only one in our group to use the rope swing off the mast into the ocean! Love you honey!

Exploring

(FJJ) Today we had nice weather and we explored the island somewhat, we drove from our villa south through the city and stopped a few beaches along the way. We ended up back at our pool with the swim up bar and hung out for the rest of the day.

 

The Pattison girls all got hats...

 

We gathered on the balcony for a nice sunset.

Monday some of us are taking a submarine excursion and then in the evening we are doing the booze cruise.

Traveling To Aruba

(FJJ) After weeks of anticipation we departed for Aruba, for the Jaquisih's that means driving to NY to meet up with the Allen's and Kitchin's and then a 2 hour drive to Albany....then a flight to Charlotte and on to Aruba... 

We had good flights except for a roller coaster ride when we descended into Aruba...if we were not belted in there would have been some lumps on our heads, but the pilot greased the landing. .We met up with the Texans at the Aruba airport, we could not have timed it any better. Looking at the transportation situation we decided to rent a van, the man assured us it would hold 12 people....maybe little Arubians...well we packed in the 10 of us and all our gear..but we should get some foot note in the Guiness book....

 We arrived at our villa around 5:30PM, we sent a party to the store and left some to get us settled into the villa, it is right across the street from the ocean, very nice. The weather was rainy...yes rainy..but we did catch a decent sunset

After we had takeout pizza for dinner, we were entertained by Mike nad Tom, not just the music but some pretty funny impersonations by these two...I am sure our ribs are going to be sore by the time this is over.

.Today we will likely explore the island and figure out how we want to spend the rest of the week.

-2 Days

FJJ - Y'all.  Credit card companies are notified, International cell phone plan in place, I have been working out this week getting in shape by trying to have a Martini almost every night, but we have not started packing...hopefully tomorrow we start.  I think I will work out with beer tonight, although I doubt I can get BALASHI at the Bobcat in Bristol, where we are meeting Emily's BF's parents for dinner.

(mds)  Just wanted to remind everyone that there is supposed to be internet with a wireless network at the house.  You may want to ask friends and family to e-mail you for non-emergent contact, especially if you have a way to access an e-mail account via the internet (g-mail, etc.).

It's getting very close.  I can't wait to get to Aruba to cool off -- we hit 90 today for the first time this year and it's a humid bugger.  Teresa is fully packed, but my stuff is all over the place.  Aroooooobah!

Almost ready to go, been working hard on my beach look, stubborn belly fat!!!!   EA

5 days

(mds) We're getting close.  I think my lips are already drying from the salt air.  I've got Aruba on my mind and it's all I can do to keep from accidently dictating "swim up bar" in my reports.  I'm even starting to think about packing, an activity that I notoriously wait for the last minute to do.  One of this week's goals is to put tunes to Bob's lyrics -- I have already got something in mine, and maybe a surprise add-on at the end.  Bob says he's bringing a harmonica.  We'll see what else makes it.

Heywood's blog

(mds) Cool,  now I'm up and running.  For some reason my work e-mail blocked the link to contribute, but the g-mail work-around is a success.  


Us Texans are getting geared up.  The wives had lunch yesterday and discussed much.  Teresa is half packed, even though we are more than a week away.  


Let hear the howl...  

-11 Days

FJJ - OK Boyz and Girlz, I know it may seem a bit wierd to start a blog 11 days before you actually depart, but we have been planning this for so long, I feel like we are already on our way. So maybe we can lay some ground work so that future blogs are easier to follow.

So when are we going? May 5th thru May 13th, 9 days, including 2 days of travel

Where are we going? Aruuuuuba!

Where are we staying? Malmok Beach at a villa called 'ArubaHouse'

So this is a start....we have 11 days to practice, sleeping in late, being a layabout, drinking before noon and staying up late partying.

Let's get in shape team!!