Snorkeling Curacao, Day 2

We were a little slow starting the day...must have been the wine last night.  By mid morning, I fixed some eggs for breakfast and we enjoyed our coffee on the balcony of our apartment. We consulted the dive map, and decided we wanted to try to get to Mushroom Forest and Santu Pretu which were just a few kilometers south of us.  The western side of Curacao is known for its many dive spots, most of which you enter from the beach.

This was Mushroom Forest...

.and this was Santu Pretu, but there was a gate blocking
the dirt road to the lagoons so we couldn't get to them- dang it.
(So I looked them up on Google images!)

We checked the map once again, and just one beach south of us is Santa Cruz. Though it did not
have a dive flag listed with the beach, we decided to check it out.  If you look at the map, Lagun
(where we are staying) is the fifth dive flag down on the left, which is the west side of Curacao.

This view of Santa Cruz looked pretty inviting,
but down at the beach, the water was brown. A
'river' was flowing in to the lagoon, which looked
to be filled with raw sewage.  Little kids were
playing in the water, but no way was I getting in 😟
We could see a blue awning, and what looked like
a dive operation, so we left the beach to have a look.

Behind the dive shop was a sign, with a path
leading through the woods...it looked promising.

I have no idea where we were going, but it was
a good 15-20 minute hike!

The trees were covered in air plants.

Len was a good sport (I mean, pack mule!)

Lo and behold, it dumped us out at a private beach 😎
There were four college kids climbing the rocks, and
one single guy in the water was snorkeling. Let's go see!

We went waaaaaaaayyyyy outside of the lagoon
and followed the cliff line.  It was beautiful,
untouched and unspoiled reef.  The coral was
alive and well, and beautiful, teeming with fish.
We stayed in the water so long I got chilled.
When I came ashore, I got rolled in the surf,
multiple times.  I barked my shins on the rocks,
and lost a fin. Len recovered it, and he went
down, too!  It took us both crawling on our
hands and knees to safely get ashore, lol.
It was my first time to swim through a huge bait ball...I was
praying there wasn't a sailfish or nurse shark on the other side!

We were a little scraped up, but still smiling :)
We found out later on that the path took us to
the beach where you can access the Santu Pretu.
Though we swam up to two different mooring
balls, (which we thought may be dive markers)
we never did see the shipwreck- dang it!

We came back to our resort, and snorkeled in the
lagoon there.  It honestly was the best one of
all the dives- and it was right in our backyard.
We both experienced a first- we saw a school
 of squid, and I saw a sea turtle right at the very end.
Of course, the reef was filled with all of the
pretty tropicals; blue tangs, rainbow parrot fish,
sargeant majors, angelfish, and more.  We took a
dip in the pool, grabbed a hot shower, fixed a cold
drink, and headed down to catch the sunset again.

We drove about looking for a restaurant, and found ShelterRock.
I wanted a local dish, and I had read about Kabritu Stoba.
In Dutch, it is known as 'Gestoofd Geitenvlees', or more
affectionately...it is Goat Stew. I must say, it was ALL very
delicious, and I did not 'pay' later that night for having been
gastronomically adventuresome at dinner...
You only get one go around, so goat stew it is! 😬
It must have been ordained, as the chair I sat
in was called Pamela.  For those of you that
don't know, it is my legal first name.
So. there. you. go.

G'nite, y'all!

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