Sunday in Aruba

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Good Sunday

After refreshing sleep, we were up at 7 and had no problem getting to church by 9:45 – except that when we got there the doors were locked ☹ Still just meeting virtually? The only good thing was that we were able to practice our Spanish with a security guard.

So we quickly returned to the hotel for a quick change into swim suits and light lunch and went snorkeling at Arashi – the beach furthest up the northwestern coast, near the California Lighthouse. There is now a buoy marking the reef, a great improvement over trying to guess. It’s a fairly long swim out, though, and we found many lovely fish and corals to look at before there, plus I was detecting a current that I didn’t fancy fighting to come back, so we never did get to the best Elkhorn corals. Hope you enjoy the fish we did see, however.

Met a nice lady with her son from Washington DC, but it’s amazing how many people hope to see colorful fish in the sandy surf, and expect to snorkel in bare feet. We were out about 1.5 hours.

After a break from the sun we popped out again do some birding and found these crazy looking Aruban pigeons, can’t remember their real names, and listened for a long time to banaquits like this one. Dinner at Nos Clubhuis in Palm Beach area started in the daylight but we were there until after the sunset – here’s proof. The grouper wrap was great! Got home just in time for our weekly Zoom meeting with family, and soon to bed to recover and ready for excitement tomorrow.

We are very fortunate that the trade winds are lovely as usual, and not sucked away by some nearby tropical storm, as can sometimes happen, making this a very hot time of year to visit.

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