12-10-16 Curacao (7am - 10:30pm) :

They were calling for the same weather here today as we had on Bonaire yesterday, so I was a little down.  But we were seeing some blue skies, so decided to head out and hopefully get some snorkeling in.  We had tentatively made plans to go to Porto Mari with someone from Cruisecritic.com.  I had gotten her room number at the meet and greet which was held before docking at Grand Turk.  I think I woke her.  She wasn't wanting to leave before 11.  So we headed down with no real plans.  I figured we would see if anyone else was wanting to go to Porto Mari at the taxi waiting area, or just go to Blue Bay again (where we went last time we were here). 

 After waiting about 30 minutes, someone wanting to go to Blue Bay finally showed up, so we joined them.  Made our fare $7.50@ one way.

Stuff to do here at Blue Bay Resort.

 I wasn't really disappointed that we ended up here.  It is a beautiful beach.

The water was about 83 degrees.  

 We immediately headed around the point to the right. 

Blue Bay isn't publicized for the snorkeling, but if you go around the points, it's really quite good!

 a little damselfish

lots of different kinds of corals and fish.

 This photo is a little deceiving---this bunch of coral was quite large.  This was taken as we were cutting across the bay and going around the left point.

 more kinds of coral

a trumpet fish turned yellow

lots of brain coral

 snapper in a large vase coral

 The little blue damselfish all grown up.

 looking into the deep

smiling parrotfish

 scrawled file fish

 a lone conch

 4 eyed butterflyfish

 small blue cleaner wrasse

 school of blue tangs

 a bat ray

 a pair of  honeycomb cowfish

 a more unique parrotfish

 the only squid we saw this trip

another type of parrotfish

 looking back to Blue Bay which is on the other side of the blue building.

 there's a nice bay for snorkeling to the left of Blue Bay (looking out from the beach there).  Quite large and lots of fish.

 another 4 eyed butterflyfish

 yellowstripe goatfish

a more boring colored parrotfish

much prettier parrotfish

 fish time I've seen these parrot fish with the yellow fins.

 another more colorful parrot fish

pudding wife wrasse 

banded butterflyfish

never seen a reddish trumpetfish before

flying gunard---I've seen a few of these guys in Hawaii, but none as colorful as this guy.

around the point of that bay to a bunch of big rocks.

looking back towards Blue Bay

 checking out the undercut rocks

 yellow tail snapper

 not sure of this kind of fish---emporer?

 parrotfish

 grunt

 filefish

 coral

 and another kind of parrotfish

 pretty parrotfish

 scorpion fish

 parrotfish

 parrotfish

puffer fish

 a bluish trumpetfish (I've only seen blue ones in the Caribbean)

 bicolor damselfish (looks like tri-color to me!)

 yellow headed wrasse

 blue tangs

 a flounder

 one of the few chubs we saw here---see lots of them around Kauai.

 school of glassy sweepers---they like to hang out under docks and such.

 a sea anemone

close up of some glassy sweepers.

 don't know what kind of fish these guys are but there was a pretty good size school of them. 

 thought this was interesting---coral growing on a submerged log.

porcupine puffer

 spotted drum

 juvenile blue tang surgeonfish

 The weather held up pretty well, but we did get off and on rain.  After about 3 hours we got out and sat at a picnic table for a bit where Ken had a Coke and I had a Bright beer (at least some of it---the part I didn't dump over!).  All too soon it was time to head back to the ship.

Back on board, I enjoyed the views of Willemstad from the ship. 

 Guess I didn't get my camera totally defogged---ended up with blurry pictures of the port.

 The little shopping area by the taxi stand where we caught our taxi to the beach.  When I first saw this surf, I was a bit worried.  But when we got to the more protected beach area, the water was much calmer. 

 Love the colorful architecture of the area and the fancy bridge in the background.

 Since we were there until about 11pm, we got to see the lights of the city by night.

 Tonight they had live music in the World Stage with footage from BBC's Frozen Planet.  I enjoyed it---Ken thought it was hard to follow.

We also enjoyed another movie on the Lido deck---The Hollars (a comedy where a man returns to his small hometown after learning that his mother has fallen ill and about to undergo surgery).
 That pretty much took up today!

This little guy was waiting for us back in our room.

Sure glad they were wrong about the weather today!  A few short showers, but no lightening.  Turned out to be a great day!