Day 6-Saturday, December 12, 2009

Let me start off with a bodily injury update. We are almost through our second bottle of OFF and that is a big deal to me. I’m up to 8 mosquito bites, Shelli has 7 and we have to survive 3 more nights here! We’ve taken to creating a tent at night on the bed, tucking the sheet in entirely around our heads, feet and arms. It’s working, but let one inch of your skin out from under the tent, and it’s free game. So now, fresh new bites on the palm of one hand, an index finger, and my wrist are added to my list. In other bodily injury news, it would appear that my wife Shelli fractured her pinky toe when she stumbled over a paving stone walking to the room yesterday. And she wasn’t even drunk! Well,  between the bites, her injured toe, my fucked up shoulder, both our sunburns we make a fine pair! (Yes, I did have my *tsk, tsk* moment, as the sun is not being very nice to Shelli’s skin)  But still no one on this island is smiling wider than us. Everything’s better on vacation, even pain! Any who, nothing is to stop us from honeymooning and vacationing it up!

Today is supposed to be KishaLynn Day, meaning we’re doing the activities of my choice. I wanted to go back to Punda in the morning and explore the rest of town before our 2:00 appt for a Dolphin Encounter. Unfortunately my shoulder was causing such excruciating pain the night before that I had to take 4 Advil PMs at 2:30 a.m. just to get to sleep. This made me very groggy when the alarm went off at 9:15 a.m. I decided to sleep it off. When I woke up later, around 12:45, my shoulder felt better! It was time to get up and at ’em. We hopped out the bed, pulled back the curtain, and faces fell as we saw it pouring down rain outside. Shelli grabbed the camera to snap a photo of the cloudy sky and I think I just stared unbelievably. But before I could even suck in the air and open my mouth to complain, the deluge became a shower, the shower became a sprinkle, and the sprinkle became tiny drips from the beach’s frond-covered huts as the rain stopped. And before Shelli could even take 3 pictures, the sun was back out, the sky was blue, the clouds returned to being white and the view became once again pristine. If it weren’t for the puddles, and the drenched swimsuit I’d hung out to dry the day before, you would never know that it rained. God bless you Curacao! We were off for our Dolphin Encounter, after a quick stop by Jimmy’s Buffett for some more unremarkable, but not memorably disgusting food.

 

A Dolphin Encounter

Magical. Purely magical. Those are the best and only words I could use to describe making out with dolphins in Curacao! Thanks to our trip to Mambo Beach the day before, we knew exactly where the Sea Aquarium was, and arrived right on time for our appointment. When our trainers were ready for us, we were lead out onto a dock where we could already see the dolphins swimming about in the crystal blue water. We stripped our dry clothes from our swimsuits, and were divided into groups by language spoken. Most of the people were Dutch, one girl spoke Spanish, and we speak English. So, they had to get another trainer who spoke Spanish to come out, and we were in the group with that girl. The trainer spoke to us in English and translated to her in Spanish. Or vice versa–I don’t want to sound culturally superior.

 

We climbed down a ladder and lined up on the platform in the order of dolphin. We were assigned to Copan, a male dolphin, so we got to go down first. I was a little terrified, as I mentioned before, but the water was barely waist deep and I could see that the trainers had good control of the dolphins. Once we were all in place, we got a little dolphin lesson, where we learned cool things like dolphins shed their skin every 2 to 4 hours! Then, Copan was presented to us for the touching part. Unfortunately, they had a little trouble getting Copan to focus, because he is apparently in love with Didi, the female dolphin that was being presented to one of the Dutch groups (the third group, also Dutch, got to play with the baby, dolphin Tika.)Copan had his “swag on”, as we say, and was more interested in flirting and showing off for Didi than being touched by probably the 100th tourists that week. But, he did grace us with his presence briefly enough for some touching. Dolphins skin reminds me of an eraser, or ear cartilage. And a white film of their skin does indeed flake off when you rub them. After a brief petting, Copan was back off “being a male” for Didi, so it was obvious that he wasn’t in a kissing mood. We were told to go to the end of the platform for our kissing pictures, which meant we would get smooches from the female dolphin (and object of Copan’s total affection), Didi. That was FINE with me! 🙂 We got our kisses and posed for the camera, then the female trainer led us through a brief dolphin anatomy lesson. Another fun fact–because of their blow holes, dolphins only use their mouths for feeding, and male dolphins taste the water for female dolphin pee to see if the female is in heat. Imagine if we humans had to check like that? Gross!

 

The dolphins were adorable and I loved the cute little nose they made from their blowholes when we recognized a good job, bowing their heads into the water like a shy babe would into its mother’s breast. Such a breathtaking experience, I felt foolish for feeling fearful!

 

After exiting the water, we hung about to see how the dolphins get trained. The trainers showed off several dolphin tricks which were hard to catch on camera because our new Samsung DualView digital camera is a perfectionist and takes forever to take a picture (really good pics though!), so by the time the flash pops, that amazing dolphin jump is just a mere splash in the water on the screen. Still, even though our photos didn’t do it justice, it was great to see them jump, wave, race and be rewarded with dead fish from nearby bins.

 

Somewhat reluctantly we left the dolphin area, changed back into dry clothes, and went to explore the rest of the Sea Aquarium. There were a variety of built in fish tanks along the walls with fascinating looking fish. Unfortunately not all were labeled so it wasn’t much of a learning experience. All I can tell you is we saw some fish that were small, some fish that were big, some spongy looking fish, some squishy koosh-ball looking fish, eels, sharks, and stingrays. The best part of the aquarium aside from the dolphins was the Flamingo area, where an assortment of the pink birds were gathered, squawking about and ruffling their feathers. I learned that flamingoes sleep on one foot and get their pink color from eating shrimp. If a flamingos primary diet consists of little shrimp, it will turn white. We also met an adorable little wingless pelican named “Pela”. Pela lost her wings when she was caught in a fishing net–they had to be amputated to free her. Unable to fend for food against the other winged pelicans, she “made new friends” with the flamingoes and now lives among them, happily flapping the little nubs where her wings used to be, and fighting with flamingoes over shrimp. We definitely got our money’s worth for the experience–I can’t wait to do it again!

 

We left the aquarium and began the walk back to the Casino while I tried to figure out what I wanted to do next (besides more “honeymooning” with the Ms.) While we were walking back, a silver Toyota pulled up and a gentleman offered us a ride. (Mom, stop reading here.) We jumped in! He was a local, security guard at the Lions Resort next to the casino, and had observed us walking about yesterday in search of Mambo Beach. He figured we were from Breezes and he dropped us off there as a part of his rounds. How nice! (Mom, you can start reading again. We weren’t brutally murdered or molested.)

 

When we got back to the resort, the very first thing I wanted to do was inquire at the dive shop about the free introduction to scuba diving. We walked over to the pier (behind the disco) and were presented with a quite crotchety Australian guy behind the counter. We signed up for the 8:30 a.m. intro for the next morning and sat down to fill out the medical history forms. When we submitted the forms, the guy chastised me for putting N next to the medical history questions instead of No, and lectured me about the importance of following instructions–an ironic moment for me because I’m usually the one that follows them to a T! From then on, the guy was relentless with teasing me, and ultimately turned to Shelli and said he was going to deal with her because “she looked like she had enough sense to pay attention”! I’d have called him an asshole if Shelli wasn’t laughing so hard and joining in on the teasing–I guess I can take it!

 

I hope it’s tasty…be great to have one good meal on this resort!

 

Night 6

Ahhh what a beautiful day it has been! After we left the dive shop, I checked out a snorkel and mask and hit the reefs. I saw many, MANY schools of beautiful, tropical saltwater fish of all colors. It was so wonderful I couldn’t even imagine why anyone would pay to go on a snorkeling trip when you could snorkel free right on the resort! I snorkeled until the sun was almost set, while Shelli tanned from our rooms porch. While she could not be beckoned into the water, I wanted to live there forever. Once the sun went down it was time for more honeymooning! My shoulder pain was returning, but I tried my best to ignore it.

 

I was REALLY craving sweets, but by the time we got over to the gift shop, it had just closed. 🙁 So, about an hour before our dinner reservation we stopped by Jimmy’s Buffet to see what the offerings of the evening were. Wouldn’t you know it, they had peanut butter cookies, and some cheesecake that was actually edible! I gulped down those cookies like I’d never had one before! The dinner dishes actually looked good that night too, especially the fried fish. I resisted the urge to eat there, because I didn’t want to fill up before our actual dinner. I tasted the fish though, and it was as delicious as it looked. Go figure the yummy food would be out on a night that we don’t have to eat at the buffet!

 

Well people, I don’t know if you are the most ruthless of gambling addicts, or have never even bought a LOTTO scratch ticket, but here’s what I do know: THE PRINCESS CASINO AT BREEZES CURACAO SUCKS! Here’s 3 reasons why:

 

1. They charge for drinks. No thanks. In case you missed it, I am a guest at this resort which provides unlimited premium cocktails at no extra charge. Maybe that sign was just for locals visiting the casino, but that was a huge turnoff for me and I didn’t even approach the bar.

 

2. The casino was so smoky, and the air so horrible, that it produced a cough from me that made me throw up in my mouth a little. Yeah, I know, gross. Exactly.

 

3. Between us, we blew through $40 within 10 mins, and the most winnings between us were $6, on the penny and nickel slots–maybe 1 or 2 pulls at the $1 slots by Shelli before I pulled her off of it. Come on! Your slots can pay a little bit better than that. Why go for the dry bleed on the first $20? In Palm Springs, CA last year I gambled the penny slots for almost an hour on $13. No need to load more money on the card-this Casino sucks!

 

While I was disappointed in the Casino experience, I really couldn’t have asked for a better day. The dolphins, the snorkeling, the delicious Italian food, and quality 1-on-1 time with my new wife were all experiences I will never forget. And not just because I’m blogging about it here, but because the day was one of the happiest in my life. And not many people can say that for many days. You never forget that feeling–I have a lot of them.

 

Tomorrow, we SCUBA DIVE! I feel 3 times the flutter in my stomach at the thought of it than I did before the Dolphin Encounter, but I also feel like I can conquer the world…or at least breathing under water!

 

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