Aruba 2021
Day 8: Tuesday, August 3
Up Next...new gear, Christmas in August, bad games and spinning chairs...
Yawn, it's now 7am and it's time for our caffeine fix. Sitting outside in "our spot" and letting the heat take over my cold Coca Light! I'm trying my best to gulp in down so that I was the winner in this game of heat.
Not much exciting happened...the goat family visited, the pigeons came for a drink and the blue lizards were looking for any morsels we may have dropped the night before...but don't move or they are gone!
At 9:30am the not-so-munchin's sniffer was in full force as the bacon, eggs and toast hit the table.
We didn't really have any plans today except another beach day.
We packed to head out after breakfast. But first, as we were packing the car, Sakari yells "mom, look!" I headed over to the front porch and she points at a pigeon sitting under the tree beside the porch. Her animal whisperer self was so intrigued with it because it definitely wasn't trying to get away from us. Could it be the pigeon that ran into the house the day before? I was pretty sure it was. It must be hurt. Then I hear "mom, look!" again and I see her try to pet it! Geesh...."Sakari go wash your hands now!"
We headed out and straight to Boca Catalina again. I just love this place! But, just to clarify, we went to the "Rocky Boca" since we have now discovered there's 2 Boca's.
I headed out (alone) and the fam decided to set up camp under a tree with shade and not swim.
I headed to the right and toward Arashi.
Stoplight Parrot Fish
French Angelfish
Smoothe Trunkfish
French Angelfish
After making it all the way to Arashi, it was time to head back....against the waves. Woah! It was a little strong today and it definitely wore me out! As I got back, the hubby was finally coming in the water. Ohhhh, now you want to swim? Well, I'm getting out now to rest!
After resting, the family decided they wanted to snorkel with me. Since I knew the water was a little rough and easier to drift in the direction of Arashi I decided we should go down to the next beach to get in. THAT is when I discovered that it was the other Boca Catalina beach! Ahhhh, I finally get it! I don't know why it took me walking down that way to figure this out. Below is the path combining these two beaches.
Time for some snorkeling. Sakari managed to get tons of awesome pictures of course. It was Christmas in August for us. The corals were decorated with so many different colored Christmas Tree worms and they were so beautiful!
Then there were the normal worms as well.
Another beautiful school of blue tangs. I just love when they arrive in groups like this. It's so beautiful to watch them making every calculated move together.
Huge French Angelfish swimming buy us.
Along comes a nice sized White spotted filefish. So beautiful and so graceful when swimming.
A Orange Spotted Filefish. I'm not really sure why they are called this because the stripe is more pronounced than any spots.
Another White spotted filefish.
Spotted Trunkfish.
More of the red glassy sweeper fish again
We had drifted back to where our beach was and explored all over. As we were getting out the hubby yelled for me to come back in. He's like "What the heck is this???"
He's asking me if it was a baby shark or something the other fish were eating. Honestly I wasn't sure what the heck it was. Maybe some giant squid or just a large fish or....I really don't know.
Sakari decided to stay and take some pictures from shore and I would take a few more of the beach area.
Sakari was busy making her "sand castle" only it wasn't a castle, it was a mountain...a Hooiberg to be exact. Complete with the steps. LOL Was she still reliving this walk up the mountain. LOL She had also completed another drawing.
Here's a little video I made from our snorkeling adventure.
We decided to leave and head back home for some lunch.
When we returned, Sakari went to go check on the pigeon from this morning. Well, it didn't make it sadly. :(
I managed to whip up a quick lunch of warming up some mac & cheese from the other night and some turkey sandwiches. I think the family thought I actually made mac & cheese and I was a wizard with this quick meal I came up with..."You are amazing babe" I got from the hubby.
We were a little red from today. The back of my legs and the hubbys back. Now that Aruban Aloe will come in handy! It felt wonderful!!!
The hubby had been complaining about needing a snorkel and how much easier it would be to snorkel with me if he had one. Now I'm not sure what happened to his from back in 2010 when we first purchased our snorkeling set, but my theory is that somewhere along the line Kendra ended up with it when we were on one of our vacations with her. I haven't seen it since. :/ Any time she gets ahold of something, consider it going into the black hole with no return...like ever! LOL
So, we were gonna get the hubby a new one! I started looking up scuba shops (we wanted a dry snorkel, not the cheap ones you find in the store) and I located 2 shops close to us and off we went.
The first place mapsme took us to didn't seem to exists. So, our next option was one that we KNEW was there because we had passed many times on the main road by the hotel district. It was the Mermaid Sport Divers dive center.
This place was pretty cool looking inside. I really liked how they had it decorated. There was a couple in there (with a young child ???) and they were watching the Discover Scuba Dive training video "Never Hold Your Breath" yea yea yea...lI know all this and knew exactly what they were doing. I just wasn't sure why they were watching the video when they had a child with them. Like what are you doing with your child during your dive? Why is it here?
A guy came to help us and we told him what we were looking for. He led us over to the snorkels and we inquired about the pricing. Yes, they were expensive, but it was worth it to help the hubs out.
The hubby walked out with a brand new snorkel for $40.28 and now there were no excuses why he wouldn't be able to snorkel with me everywhere.
Now I want you to check out this receipt from buying the snorkel:
Did you notice that 6% tax??? Really? This is the ONLY place that charged us tax the entire trip or at least the only place I had noticed. I guess it took me off guard.
Once we were back home, I messaged Dream Bowl for reservations for bowling tonight like they said. We had reservations for 7pm tonight...finally! Sakari was happy as can be! I started my first load of clothes since vacation started and talked to Kendra on snapchat for a little while and sent her pictures of our new skin.
We headed out to the mall to go bowling.
I probably shouldn't have made the reservations for so early. It wasn't all lit up and pretty like the last time we were here because it was still daylight. Planning failure!!
When we went in, there was only 1 family there and 1 lane booked. Hmm, I needed a reservation for this?
We took our lane and they put some strangers name up on the board. Who the heck is "Kim Barber"????
We had a laugh at it.
We paid for 1 hour of games and the cost would be a total of $38.50 or 49ƒ The shoe rental was $3.50 each and the game was $28.
We were struggling...like really struggling. It was probably the worse game we have all ever played. The balls are absolutely terrible! There were chunked out of them. The would go to the side. No matter how you would throw them, they went where they wanted. Bowling on a ship that was moving was easier than this!
Sakari was getting frustrated because she kept getting gutter balls. At one point we went and ask the people at the desk to put the gutter guards up for her and they ask her age...then told us you have to be 12 and under to use them. SAY WHAT?!?!? I've never heard of that before. What makes the difference the age?
We had such a bad game!!!
Can you believe those scores?? 44 for me! 31 for Sakari! And 74 for the hubs! (I'm sure he cheated somehow)
It was ridiculous! We had enough time for maybe 1 more game so we were gonna give it a shot. We were still doing terrible and things got even worse (not the bowling) but another family came in: a lady and 3 kids, and decided to use the lane beside us. Well, they took over our balls!!! They didn't go get any of their own or anything. We would have to wait until the ball returned back up to even be able to bowl. It was very aggravating. We ended up going and getting more balls and they would even take them. Very rude!
However, we were able to get better scores despite having holey balls.
After bowling we headed out and it was dark now and everything was lit up and pretty and the hubby said "now look at the lanes" and it became like moonlight bowling and the lights were out and everything on the lanes were lit up neon florescent colors. Dang, we missed that too!
We decided to go to the shopping area that we didn't go to before. I have to say it was quite the walk! I remember doing it before, but I didn't have a bum leg either.
We finally made it to the shopping area. We purchased a few things here and there and then I caught something out of the corner of my eye. There were some weird top looking chairs that people were spinning on. It looked cool so I had to show Sakari. She started spinning and said it was so fun. Everyone was having a blast on them.
I was kinda disappointed in the "shopping area" because there really wasn't a hold lot of places. It was mostly restaurants. However, Sakari was able to find herself a Geo (which is her new collection thing) and also an
Aruba sweatshirt. We were trying to figure out a place to eat because it was dinner time and we were hungry.
Nothing was really sounding good to us and everything was super expensive. The hubby remembered there was a McDonalds on the main road and he told me that we were real close to it. So, we decided to walk there and then we would take the main road back to the car afterwards.
Still shopping along the way...
There are so many picturesque things in Aruba. I really wished that we had came to the area during the day for better pictures.
Then as we were walking down the street leading to McDonalds, I spotted a cigar store and ask the hubby did he want to go in and check it out and see if there was anything he might like. While the hubs went inside to check out the selection I watched one of the employees outside setting up this contraption on this grill looking thing and then putting these square things in the top and attaching hoses. What is this thing?? I had no idea. Then he took it over to 3 people sitting outside at the tables.
I walked in the store with the hubs and ask him about what I had seen. He told me it was a hookah. Ohhhh, I had never seen them before but heard people talk about them. It was really intriguing to me. I had always wanted to try it. I started asking about it and pricing. For $40 you rent the machine and get 1 tube. For $45 you get 2 tubes. Hey, why not? Might as well say that my first experience was in Aruba. He told us what flavors they had, I told him what flavors I liked and he decided to make a mixture of things and said "you will like it".
We picked a table and here we go....... It was a great flavor, it was very smooth and I really really liked it. The hubby explained to me that it is meant to be relaxing and calming and I truly believe that's what it was. It was amazing!
As we sat there, things started to come alive. There was a bar here, and a live dj and a dance floor. More and more people were showing up. It became quite a lively place to be. Most of the music they played was latino music, but they did throw in a little Cyndi Lauper and 50¢ at times.
Sakari really wanted a virgin daiquiri. I went over to the bar to ask "how much". Now I'm not going to drag this whole scenario out as long as it happened, because it was an ongoing thing of me asking how much, the bar tender not knowing, me asking for them to find out, him not knowing, it went on and on to the point I finally got fed up and walked away. After sitting back down, he came over and ask if I wanted the virgin daiquiri. My reply "You still haven't given me a price yet!" He ask me again "Are you wanting one?" At this point I was aggravated with him and told him "No! Forget it" He walked away and actually came back and said it was $10!! For a virgin? Are you serious? Get outta here dude you're crazy.
He spent a few hours there...hey we completely forgot that we were hungry. Oops!
When we were finished we headed down the street, all relaxed, and headed to McDonalds.
We ordered a Big Mac meal ($10.50), a Quarter Pounder with cheese meal ($10.50) and a cheeseburger meal ($4.00). When I ordered the cheeseburger meal he said "Do you want the meal?"...Yes, yes I do. Well when it came out, Sakari's cheeseburger "meal" was only a cheeseburger and a drink they charged us $3.50 for. Wait, where's the fries? I had to go back and was told that their "meal" did not come with fries and I would have to pay extra ($2.30). Our total ended up being $20.30 US / $35.50ƒ
Bellies full and it was time for that long walk back to the car at the mall.
Here's a video from tonight's activities.
We headed home and straight to bed! Whew! Sakari of course headed to her sauna to do one last drawing.
