Guess what we did at 7 am? Jumped up and went birding at the Spanish Lagoon of course. Cant beat the photo of the humming bird taken the other day, but theres a really cute one of the hummer with a HUGE pigeon on the same branch. You can imagine lots of subtitles for that.And another where he is displaying his lovely red fanned tail.
We returned home for a small breakfast and to change into our snorkeling gear – lets see how the drift looks at Mangel Halto. It was THE BEST ever. Hardly any waves or current and so very clear. We had so much fun just exploring near the entrance to the drift because a out as we entered suggested we go upstream, which wed never done before : elkhorn corals, very alive varieties of all sorts, and eels and many fish. In fact, we were in no hurry and spent an hour in that area before drifting - it took about 2.5 hours to the end.
us. They wanted to know why the one little snorkel set they had wasnt working well, and could they go out to see fish right there? We demonstrated our snorkel tube (seco – mas caro) that doesnt let in water, our prescription masks, our boots and fins. They are here for a short time mostly to attend a Christian financial seminar – they invited us to the session on Friday night. Well check out the church for Sunday perhaps. We exchanged hugs and got a photo together.
We had our tomato and cheese sandwiches overlooking the turquoise bay, and then jumped in the drift again! Only for another hour this time. You cant waste that clarity. We just hung around the entrance area.
So we went off towards La Cabana to do some birding up that way. Yes, we spied the peregrine falcon that lives on the sign at the Riu – one of the high rise hotels. And David thinks he saw the scissor tailed flycatcher but didnt get a photo. We finally stopped
to see the blowholes up on Eagle Beach. And by the way, the signs that indicate the number of turtle nests this to last show a decrease 😞. Last years had been up. Lets hope its just that last year there were more volunteers finding the nest, and this year these volunteers are back to their jobs. We did hear that Aruba is back to being as busy with tourism as usual. Yeah. And it is hardly crowded, which is fine by us.
All in all, still no new fish this time (we really think we know them all, including their middle names), but 2 more birds for our – thats 4 this trip.
Then we had dinner at Indo, the very basic Surinamese rice and noodle shop with great peanut sauce on their sates, and did a little shopping at Superfoods (mostly because our local store only takes cash and we dont want to run out).
David promises I can sleep in tomorrow morning – no more early morning birding. Ahhhhhhhh. (Hes already having second thoughts about that promise. hhmmm)
