Author: Bill

Due to my bride being down for the count – just pictures for today….

Thankx~

Woke up to our new island today and REALLY appreciating the conditioned air we have in the apartment~!  My queen’s belly was a little distressed and she was not feeling quite up to snuff, so we hung out in the apartment most of the day. We are also waiting for some maintenance work that was supposed to happen today….. Workers showed up but nothing got done….. promise to return, turned out to be just that… a promise. Got tired of waiting for them to show up and my queen said she wanted to try and eat something – so we drove around until we came across a spot that was actually serving dinner. Apparently on this island, there is kind of a lull between 5:00 – 7:00 in the restaurant business for serving food – as apparently, most employees are getting off of work from their first job, going home, cleaning up a bit and then coming out for their second job. (cooks and servers)   Apparently most residents of the islands hold 2 or 3 jobs. Jeesh- that’s gotta suck~!   Anyhow, found a little spot — I ordered Tuna Meatballs and my queen ordered a Red Snapper. Meals were served promptly (island time promptly) My Tuna was kinda dry (and they were actually what I know as patties)  but had a good taste. Angie’s Snapper was served in traditional island style (entire fish including the eyes). [[ “It’s smiling at us“]]    She was a little taken aback, but launched right into it. She offered me a bite, which she promptly plopped into my hand…. WTF!    I tried it after I laid the piece on my plate and wiped my hand off….. It was delicious~! The place we were at was firing up a big BBQ pit and we were told they start serving steaks, ribs and chicken at 7:00. Probably gonna have to go back and give that a try again – as it smelled heavenly and the gentleman working the grill looked like he knew his way around a BBQ pit.

Came back and  taking it easy so my Queen can recuperate….. hopefully out and about tomorrow to start exploring our new island.

Acknowledgment and a salute to the brave young men and women who were injured or died defending their country during the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Wasn’t going to post today, just because I’m tired from a long day….. booze may be a bit of a factor as well. We were up at the crack of dawn…. actually a smidge before it, to get ready to move to our next hang out…. and here we be – on the island of Bonaire~! Initial reaction — it seems a much more well cared for island than Curacao…. mostly flat – keep a couple of big hills I saw on approach to the island. Have ventured out for lunch and some groceries. Only have the one store to base on right now, but prices seem to be considerably higher than Curacao, but no where near as bad as Grand Cayman…… more as we buy a little bit more.

Made it to our new abode… nice place, but believe there was some poetic licensing done with pictures of the place. A little bit run down and we hesitated nary a second to advise the local person of things that needed fixed. They were on it, to our satisfaction in setting out to get our concerns corrected. Not all done yet – but much better than when we arrived. We’ll see what the next day or so brings……….. Looks to be a ton of things to do here and can’t wait to get out and check them out….

Gonna leave it at that for now (tired and half hammered as it were)….. I am going to try and load my personal SCUBA video on here….. I loaded the commercial version on FB and hope to get the personal one on  here for you all…..

That’s what I thought – this POS web site won’t let me load MY  video….. will try again tomorrow when I’m less tired and less snockered…..

Good night ya’ll…..

Started the morning off with another emptying the fridge breakfast, followed up by straightening up around the house and starting to pack. One of the down sides of a nomadic life style. Got everything mostly packed, ready for our early morning departure, heading off for our next new adventure. Got the grill cleaned and stashed back in the garage. Filled the bus up and came back and washed it. Had two or twelve drinks with my bride, took a quick dip in the pool and headed out for our bon voyage dinner. My bride surprised me coming out dressed to the nines…. looking better than ever. I think that is the first time she has had on make up since we arrived 5 weeks ago. (and looked beautiful as ever~!)

The meal was wonderfully delicious as always. We convinced the kitchen we had to have smoked salmon stuffed with crab salad one more time…. WOW – just WOW~!  For the main course, my bride had beef medallions and I had a shrimp something or other. We ate to our hearts content and then some. Course – we had to have dessert and since cheese cake was no longer on the menu, we opted for a couple of brownies with ice cream….  Well Doggy…… now we were both stuffed to the gills~!

Back now, both nursing over full belly’s while we wait for the slumber in our conditioned air bedroom. I wanted to get something on here because it may be a day or so before I get back online….. always have to wait to see what the next place brings as far as internet connections…..

I did finally receive my video and pictures from my dive last weekend…. folks did a really nice job…. now just have to see if I can get them to load on this piece of crap web site….. if not – I’ll put them upon FB. Yeah, yeah, I know, I don’t like it either, but my options are kinda thin at this point. I did put a ‘commercial’ type video up on FB this afternoon, just to see if I could get it to load…… it did – and it has some nice scenery on it. The one I want to put on here now, are of my actually SCUBA dive… I hope I can get it and the pictures she took to load as they are gorgeous shots and you’ll kinda get to come along with me on a dive. Just the pictures today though…….

Tot de volgende keer

My Queen~~ <3

Banded Shrimp

Caribbean Octopus

Dolphins

Great white diver   😉

Spotted Eagle Ray

Scholl-blue-tang fish

Reef Squid

Porcupine Fish

Rainbow Parrot Fish

Hawksbill Turtle

Green Turtle

Green Turtle

Green Moray Eel

Gray Angel Fish

Goat Fish

Frog Fish

Elk Horn Coral

School of fish

Tomorrow will be our last full day on the island of Curacao. We have definitely had a good time, but we both are ready to move on. Started the day off with a big breakfast (trying to get the fridge emptied out before we take off) – with a full belly and some serious looking clouds floating around, we just lounged today. I think a whole lot of SCUBA diving in a short time caught up with me too and I was perfectly fine with doing absolutely nothing. Got caught up on a couple of bills that needed paid, made sure everything was in order for our upcoming travel and did dang little else.

Mid afternoon rolled around with intermittent rain showers and we both decided we were getting hungry. Just so happened we had two nice big steaks and one big Lobster tail in said fridge, that needed to be eaten. I fired up the grill, sautéed some onions, and had a little veggie mix I throwed on for good measure, along with the steaks (ribeye’s). My Bride said she wanted to contribute, so she made the Lobster on the stove along with some [frozen] corn-on-the cob. Sounded like the perfect meal to wrap up a really good day, which it was – wonderful! Well, except for the frozen corn-on-the-cob. It tasted like, well, frozen corn-on-the-cob. I never have figured out how to freeze corn and make it taste good when it’s cooked (although I can get close if I do it on the grill, but my Queen don’t like it off of the grill). We are going out to our new favorite restaurant tomorrow night for more smoked salmon and crab salad as a farewell to the island for us. Steaks finished up just about the time the Lobster and corn was ready – and we sat down to watch a pretty sunset, enjoy the meal and the bliss that goes with that environment. Now I’m sharing it with you. Not going to rattle on much more, because that’s about the extent of our day.

I will leave you with another bit of wisdom that my Dear Old Dad passed on to me. It came to me right after I inhaled a puff of pepper courtesy of a small wind gust and I had a sneezing fit.

“I snozed a sneeze into the air.
It fell to earth,
I know not where~!
But very stern, were the looks of those.
In that vicinity, that I snoze”

Love my Dad – he had a million of ’em~~  😉

Gott beschütze dich

Managed to worm my way in on another dive this morning….. went along with a couple getting their camera certification…… not sure what all that entails yet – as I have been taking pictures since I got my PADI certification….. guess I’ll have to see what that is all about. Not a spectacular dive, but enjoyable none-the-less! Probably one of the coolest parts of the dive was waiting to get out of the water (after the dive) while the Dutch Navy performed maneuvers on the beach. It looked to be some kind of crowd control training for the security guys, them holding back the surge of ‘deplorables’….. Good Stuff~!   Did get to see the remnants of the airplane during the dive…. Dive Master was right, not a lot of it left…. cool to see though~~ Still an enjoyable dive. Got to work on my neutral buoyancy – which is a lot tougher than you would think — Nailed it one time for about 2 minutes……!!!

Early dive so I didn’t get my regular breakfast before I cut out for the dive, so came home, washed the salt out of my mustache with 3 or 4 nice cold Heinekens   (these are much smaller bottles than at ‘home’ – don’t want to you all thinking I’m a lush or anything…….I mean don’t really care – just sayin’) my bride had waiting for me…… wound up grilling a couple of burgers and washed them down with a couple more nice cold Heinekens. Yum~! My Queen had been wanting to get a mani/pedi for a while now and finally found a nice spot for it. I drove her to the local mall and she got right in. I was going to have one with her, (YEAH~! I’m not afraid of my masculinity)  but they didn’t have an immediate opening, so I wandered the mall and then sat for a couple of hours and people watched while my Queen was tended to. Did a little shopping afterwards for some shirts my Queen was looking for….. never did find them so headed back to the house for drinks.

Did some work on my pictures while I nursed a Crown and coke and tried to put my day down in words. Starting to gear up for our move to our next island (Bonaire)~!! We fly out Wednesday morning and it’s only a 20 minute flight (instead of having to fly back to the good ole U S of A first)- so we should be there and settled into our new place by noon (local time – 2 hours ahead of Southern Indiana)…. Starting to get amped for the new adventures and sights. I do know it is right on the water (not the beach – but an inlet) and it has a pool, although I do not believe it is a private pool this time (guess we’ll have to curtail the skinny dipping for a while) — but hey – it’ll be 2 weeks out from Christmas …. mid 80*’s and sunshine…. I’m good with that~!

Pretty sure I’ve said it before – but if there is anything in particular you’d like to hear or know about our adventures, or questions you may have so far about island living (that I have not already talked about) – leave me a note in the comments — I’ll be glad to research or fill you in best I can about your question(s).

чудесный вечер

Big day for me and my Bride. We got to make a SCUBA dive together~! She done so good~!! Made it down to about 30′ and I finally got to swim with her. It was such a great day. On top of just being able to dive together, we saw a handful of beautiful turtles….one of them had to be well over a 100lbs. We got to see a really big bait ball and wound up almost in the middle of it. We got to pose next to King Neptune~! It was wonderful~! The dive master managed to get some really good pictures of us during the dive. I took a bunch of my Queen – but my pictures pale in comparison to the ones of the dive master.  No worries – my new filter is already on it’s way to Bonaire and will hopefully show up shortly after we do~! Then I can start banging out those even prettier pictures. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not ashamed of my pictures by any means, but with the right filter – they should be amazing~!! We went out for a celebratory dinner at our new favorite restaurant. We both had the smoke salmon stuffed with crab salad — my bride had shrimp on a hanging metal rod and I got PIZZA~! Not a pizza to write home to Mom about, but it mildly scratched the pizza itch I have been fighting for a while now. We shared a white chocolate cheese cake with cherry topping. Wonderful end, to a wonderful day. We came home, had a drink and then started feeding the mosquito’s…………

I’m gonna make one more dive (tomorrow) before we get out of here. Dive master said we will hopefully find the wreckage of an airplane. She said it is hard to find and there is not much of it left anymore – but still should be fun, just to look for it~!

That’s about it good peoples….. I’m pooped….. more tomorrow. For now – lots of fun pictures.

それは素晴らしい一日だった

What a great way to welcome in December~! A 2 tank dive today on one of the prettiest reef’s I’ve been to. Lot’s of fish and new things to see — even had a professional video done, which I will post to FB (because this POS web site probably ain’t gonna let me load it on here)… but done with High Res camera and proper filters – it let’s you see what it really looks like down there…… absolutely beautiful. Sooooo many pictures to show you – just wish I had the gear and this web site had the capability to show you what my eyes see versus what the camera sees. (all in good time my pretties) First dive I got see the biggest green moray eel to date~! Sadly didn’t get a picture of him because he was jammed way underneath a big chunk of coral……  did get a couple of shots of a smaller spotted one though~! Got to see another big eagle ray – those things just blow my mind how graceful and elegant they are under water. Very fun and wonderful dive first thing in the morning~!

Sat at the local restaurant and had a bite to eat with my Queen while I waited for my next dive (gotta let some of the nitrogen work out of my body before I go in again)…. went and stretched out on some beach chairs and spent about an hour gazing at some of the most beautiful blue water on the planet….. I swear I could have laid there all day staring at that water. Looking at the different colors of blue and listening to the waves lap up on the shore…… heaven on earth. Ain’t a blood pressure medicine on earth that works as well as laying there in that chair~~~

Second dive….. had a couple of extra people join the group – and can honestly say I didn’t care for that part of the dive. Too many people in the water, especially when they are swimming on top of you and bumping into you all the time. I kinda separated myself from the group and was kinda minding my own, when we rounded the wall of a big reef we were on and swam into the largest bait ball I have ever seen~! There had to be a half a million fish (Sardines). All being corralled by about a dozen large Horse Eye Jackfish. Hard to tell in the pictures, but am guesstimating these dudes were all 20-25 lbs. Before I could think real good, I was suddenly in the middle of the bait ball. It was amazing. You could not look in enough places fast enough~! It was like something right out of National Geographic. Absolutely mind bending. It was intense enough, I forgot to breathe…. which created enough air in my lungs to hike my ass right up out of the action. I quickly recovered and got some pretty decent pictures. Just wish the pictures showed the intensity of that minute or two that whole event was going on. WOW~! Just f**king WOW~! The rest of the dive paled in comparison to that, but still a great dive~! (forgot all about people climbing all over me after that).

Came back and regaled my Bride of the details of the dive…. spent a little bit of time at the dive shop putting up gear and talking with the other divers about we had witnessed. Truly spectacular~! Finally wound down a little bit, loaded our gear up in the bus and headed back for the house. Decided to stop and check the local grocery store for more Crown…. and YAY~! YAY~! they had it. So we came home with some great memories (my Bride snorkeled each time I went diving) and a couple bottles of hooch to celebrate with. A ‘nod’ to the dive center, PortoMari Sports Curacao for a great job on the guided dives. Highly recommend them as well, if you ever make it to Curacao~!

Entirely too many pictures to load for one post, so will share more of them on the slower days. Enough for today — Happy December~!

Dit is hoe te brengen in December~!!

See him ?

Slow day today… we had to go to the C-Post (post office) to retrieve mail that we had been informed was waiting on us. Not a problem Sir – we know exactly how to get there now~! Away we went, off like a herd of turtles, arriving post haste at the C-Post to collect out mail…… just to be told our mail was at a different C-Post…… awe, dammit….. our last package came to this one…… “that is too bad”. This package (according to crumpled paperwork) was at different C-Post~!! Well smother my ears in jelly and tie me to an ant hill…! Okay, where is this other post office ?? Seemed like a fair question. After about a three minute description, that I didn’t understand a friggin’ word of (other than something about a round building) – I asked, do I go this way (pointing right) down the road, or do I go this way (pointing left) down the road, to get to it.  “You can go either”    Huh ?  I can go this way (pointing right) or I can go this way (pointing left) and still get there ??  “yes”  Wouldn’t that make it this building ?  Blank stare.  Well Balls~!  We have found, further questions only exasperates the discussion. Thank you very much. We left the building (unlike Elvis)…..stood by the bus and had a smoke and discussed how in the hell you can go both directions to get to the same place~! Not to be shut down, we loaded into the bus and took off for the direction of the house. Figured I might as well work closer toward the house while probably getting lost. Asking for directions for the C-Post in Otrabanda turned out to be a real treat as well….. but after 20 minutes and multiple blanks stares…… we finally found the C-Post in Otrabanda ~! (will give directions lady credit – in that it was a half round building)  We retrieved our package (which turned out to be essentially junk mail) and proceeded post haste back toward the house – as we were already working our way there. My Bride decided we needed to stop at the local store to pick up more Crown…. as we have been powering through it pretty good of late. Pulled into said store – Bride ran in only to find out we have cleaned them out…. and they “have no idea when they will get more in”….. Dammit Emmit~! Now we have to plan a trip back down to the big city for more hooch….. I wonder if I can get there from here~~~

Sat outside with drinks discussing today’s and upcoming event’s, not so slowly being consumed by a horde of mosquito’s that have taken up residence in our little patio area. We bought several types of candles and some smoke ring thingy’s  trying to deter the blood thirsty little bastards….. but I think about all we have succeeded in doing now, is making the patio smell like a head shop. Curious to see how many of my younger readers will know what that is  😉   I believe the name of my old hang out was Folz City Boutique there in Evansville…… AHhhh, the good old days.

Big day tomorrow – 2 tank dive planned~! Yay – I can’t wait — I love floating around near the ocean floor, trying to spot things I haven’t seen before~! Then have a  1 tank dive with my Bride on Saturday~!!  REALLY looking forward to that~! Will have plenty of pictures for the next couple of days – but for now – some from previous days dive.

Ya’ll kom nu terug Ya Hear~!

After a pitiful night sleep….. got my day started off with a delicious breakfast and headed out to the local dive shop for a scheduled guided dive. Happily my Bride came along to snorkel while I played around on the ocean floor. Saw a new fish today, but haven’t found the name of it yet – almost like he has wings…… saw some of the prettiest reef yet – just didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted on it….. dammit – guess I’ll just have to go back~!  😉  Dive Master turned me on to how she is getting such good pictures. Not so much that her camera is better than mine – but she uses a red filter designed to take pictures under that gorgeous blue water and have them turn out that great. I have already ordered one and it is already waiting for me in Florida – I just have to wait to get my new address so I can have it sent to me – then look out, my pictures should be as good as hers…..!

When we first showed up to the dive shop, my Queen got called out for a small presentation. A certificate for her dive the other day~! After talking with the Dive Master a little more – she has decided she does in fact want to try another dive – and the Dive Master is going to let me tag along on the dive – so I’ll finally be able to do a dive with my Baby~~ <3  I can’t wait~!!

After my dive, we came back, throwed everything into the pool to get the salt off (including ourselves)… had a couple or 6 drinks and decided to go out to eat. The dive shop has a nice little place right next door to it – so we thought we would check it out. OMG – sure wish we would have found this place a LOT sooner…. best meal we’ve had since we’ve been on the island. WOW~! Only way to put it. I’ll save my restaurant review for Trip Advisor – but if you ever get to Curacao, you should really check it out. (Eet Café de Buurvouw)

Anyhow – another wonderful day in sunny 85* weather, diving in some of the clearest, pretty blue water on the planet and a wonderful meal to wind it up with — a damn fine hump day if I do say so myself~!

Moge al uw kinderen worden geboren naakt  🙂

Stove pipe sponge