Tuesday the 28th

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It’s our elder daughter Heather’s 8^thwedding anniversary with Dario, so we had to sing our usual song and send it by WhatsApp after taking our breakfast outside on that amazing patio.

Then it was off to Mangel Halto for a drift snorkel of just under 2 hours. Yes, we saw the usual amazing variety of corals, hard and soft, and so many fish, including an Ocean Triggerfish, which is only at the edge before the shelf drops off into the deep. And a big thick green Moray (no photo). I would say the most amazing thing is the variety of neon blue fish: the tangs on parade, blue spotted baby damselfish, blue chromis, and creole wrasses. Lots of types of parrotfish – you can hear them crunching on the coral when it’s not too deep.

We had an interesting conversation with an older gentleman as we got out (yes, older than us!), who used to be a divemaster here. He said Egypt is amazing. We know that. But it’s a little less convenient and friendly than this wonderful Happy Island of Aruba.

We had lunch on the way to Baby Beach at a place we saw advertised on an infovideo at La Cabana – the best “johnnycakes” on the island. Each doughball is freshly deepfried – it swells up to make a big pocket, which then gets stuffed with cheese & ham for David, and saltfish for Jean.

It’s amazing how Baby Beach has changed since we first came in 2006. Yes they rented chairs and little tents, but since then Big Mama has set up a huge open air restaurant, bar, dozens of tent cabanas, etc. In 2007 David and Steve Rufe were asked to help move the walls of the portable toilet!! We reckoned we should have gotten some recompense for that, don’t you? Supposedly a turtle lives in that lagoon, but it’s not good for snorkeling, so we just looked and felt amazed at its increasing popularity.

We had dinner at the Flying Fishbone tonight – a lovely restaurant in Savaneta where you sit either with your feet in the water, or in the sand, or not, and especially for sunset. The temperature was wonderful with the balmy breeze. Thank you, John & Robin, for the 50^th anniversary gift. Jean had the Savaneta History seafood thing – with rice was calamari, fish chunks, mussels. David had an amazing blue cheese shrimp casserole with mashed potatoes. The sunset was very mild, but a storm was brewing out at sea which provided an interesting light show. We don't think we had been there since 2010.

Another long, varied, and satisfying day.

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