August 12, 2021

After our exploration of Cascais, it was time to head up the coast, north of Lisbon, to spend some time in the Silver Coast of Portugal. This area has become more popular over the past few years as the Algarve area, to the south, has gotten really heavily developed by expats and sunseekers. Algarve is on our list to visit, after we finish with the Lisbon/Silver Coast area.

If you look at a map of Portugal, you will immediately see that there is a tremendous coastline along the Atlantic Ocean on the western and southern borders of the country. The southern coastline is the Algarve area. This is 96 miles of fantastic beaches and varying types of beachfront communities. The western coastline, above Lisbon, is about 150 miles. This coast line is a bit different as it is rockier and has more wave action than in the south. Therefore, it is great for surfing. Some areas, such as Peniche and Navaré feature world class waves and competitions during certain times of the year. The beaches are still excellent, but they are colder and much more windy than in the south.

So, we set off to explore Peniche first. This is directly on the coast on a small peninsula jutting right out into the Atlantic. About an hours drive from Sintra gets us there.

Quite honestly, Peniche is kind of disappointing. We first went directly to the beach area, which is extensive, but has no charm whatsoever. It consists of a lot of low rent apartments complexes, a few surf shops, and surfing schools, and a couple of beer/burger joints. Having said that, there were a lot of families there playing on the beach, some surfers, and beach walkers. It is not a bad area. Just not what we were expecting or looking for.

This main beach area is about 5 miles from the actual town of Peniche. We drove through it on the way out. Just a typical little town with a lighthouse. We didn’t even stop to wander about. We headed off to our next destination, Navaré.

Navaré was the polar opposite of Peniche. This little town was totally jammed with tourists of every shape, size, age, and nationality. One of first impressions driving into town was a little old grandma sitting on the side of the road with a sign saying “Rooms for Rent”, in 4 different languages; English, German, Spanish, and French. We thought this was just some enterprising young man getting his grandma to advertise his rooms until we started seeing different versions of grandma, all with the same sign, sitting all over town. There is evidently some company with a lot of rooms to sell that has found its’ new marketing program with Grandma. It is a backpackers’ heaven here with rooms to rent for about 30 euros per night.

Imagine the busiest Spring Break location you have ever been to in your life, and multiply it by 10. This is Navaré in the summer time. Wall to wall people, in the streets, on the beaches, in the shops and restaurants. We couldn’t even find a place to park within a couple of miles of the beaches. We had arrived in the early afternoon, way after most people were already settled in.

While driving around, we notice a tram (or a funicular) coming down the side of the mountain overlooking the seaside. We figured, what the heck. Let’s see if we can park up there and take the tram down. We made it up the mountain, asked a lot of people questions (all in Portuguese of course) and finally found a place to park at the top part of the mountain, near the tram station.

The first thing we noticed when we parked was the local bull fighting ring. Yes, you read correctly, bull fighting ring.

We saw this bull fighting ring advertised all over Portugal. I thought bull fighting was just in Spain and Mexico. Obviously, I was mistaken.

We walked over to the tram station and waited in line for about 30 minutes and finally made it down to the beach level.

The beach was very crowded with a mixture of families and international tourists. Walking the streets was an adventure as there were swarms of people on very narrow sidewalks.

We decided to get some dinner and found that was a bit more difficult than we envisioned. It was now about 5PM. The restaurants had shut down for their afternoon down time and most had not reopened. We found one small restaurant on the strip and decided to give it a try. The owner actually quizzed us about our intentions. Did we want to have dinner or just a couple of drinks. We told him dinner and he graciously allowed us to enter his restaurant and spend some money. We literally saw him kick out several couples that only wanted drinks, not to eat. I guess he was maximizing his table space. That’s fine. Just put a sign out and not be the total jerk he was. Dinner wasn’t even that good. We wandered around a bit after dinner and decided to head back up the mountain.

Nazaré was not for us. I kind of liked the activity, but Andrea just couldn’t handle the hoards of people just literally clogging up the town. So, off to explore more of Portugal tomorrow.

August 11, 2021

As mentioned in a previous post, we were based out of Sintra, Portugal in an Airbnb. We are in Portugal exploring the possibility of becoming residents, then citizens of this beautiful country. So, we are visiting as many areas of Portugal as we can on this trip.

Just west of Sintra, right on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, is Cascais. This little seaside town is a fully functional fishing town with a very royal history. Back in the 1870’s, King Luis I of Portugal started to vacation here to get away from the big city of Lisbon. Of course, where ever the king goes, his court and other rich folk soon follow. So, this oceanfront town became “the” place for the rich to take their holiday. Almost 200 years later, this tradition remains.

The town is nestled at the base of the Sintra Mountains right on the rocky coast of the Atlantic Ocean. They have 17 natural beaches scattered along the coastline. The cliffs literally are the majority of the shoreline of the town.

The Citadel of Cascais still remains at the heart of the town. It was once a critical part of the defense of the City of Lisbon. It guarded the entrance to the Tagus River. The still functioning fishing industry docks at the foot of the citadel, as well as the boats and yachts of the rich and famous.

We drove in from the northern side and stopped at A Boca do Inferno (The Mouth of Hell) beach and marina.

We spent a little more time climbing around the rocks and headed into the main part of town.

We headed down the coast a mile or so to get into the heart of Cascais. There we found the Citadel of Cascais, a great harbor and beach area, and a very quaint and interesting town square with amazing shops, restaurants, and walking areas.

We walked around the marina area, stopped in a few shops, then had lunch at a very nice restaurant. Our waiter was quite the entertainer. Check him out in the video below.

After lunch, we explored the surrounding area, then headed back to Sintra.

We continued up through the mountains, then made it to Sintra to get ready for tomorrow’s adventure.

August 9-12, 2021

After a couple of great days wandering around Madrid, Spain, we headed over to the Madrid airport to pick up a rental car. The next leg of our European trip consists of driving to Portugal and researching some possible places to live. We are seriously considering establishing residence in Portugal with the intent of getting our Portuguese citizenships. We would then be dual citizens of the United States and Portugal. Andrea grew up in England and loves the European life style. So, we are going to see if maybe this is a good life choice for us.

We are going to visit 4-5 very different areas of Portugal and see which part, if any, we like best and could possibly live in for a while. The first stop on this journey is Sintra. This is a resort area to the west of Lisbon. It is known for its’ historical aspects and is nestled in the mountains just off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

The idea is not only to find a place to live, but possibly buy an existing Bed & Breakfast, or rental units for an Airbnb business. So, we are not only researching areas, but looking at real estate as well.

Portugal is a poor country, so they are always looking for ways to attract fairly affluent foreigners to come and live in Portugal and spend their money. Tourism is a good way to accomplish this, but they do even better with the Expat communities around the world. A 2 week vacation is great. Actually living in Portugal and spending your normal living expenses there is even better. Portugal has a Pensioner Program for retired persons. We fit into this category. If you have a permanent, guaranteed, monthly income of at least 1,500 euros per month, for a couple, they will accept you into this program. This amount of 1,500 euros represents the average cost of living for a couple to live, per month, in Portugal.

In this Pensioner Program, you get residency and after 5 years you can apply for Portuguese citizenship. This is one of the easiest ways to get another citizenship in the world, unless you want to buy one for hundreds of thousands of dollars, or euros, in Portugal or other countries. In Portugal this is known as the Golden Visa program. With my Social Security retirement income and our other sources of income we more than qualify for this plan, called a D7 visa. They will also give you a tax break with no taxes for ten years in their Non Habitual Resident (NHR) program. This has given new immigrants tax free status to encourage them to live in their country.

As we were getting ready to leave Madrid, we found we had a bit of an issue with our Airbnb in Sintra. Evidently Portugal had passed a law requiring all transient rental guests to provide a negative Covid test upon check in, in July 2021. This information is contained no where in any hotel or Airbnb information on any site that we booked accommodations. We got a fairly direct, bordering on nasty, email from our Airbnb in Sintra 2 days before we were due to check in stating that we had to provide this negative test, taken within 48 hours of arrival, before they would check us into the property. We were supposed to complete their arrival form, including the negative test results, before they would register us. What a pain in the butt. With the increase of travel this year, and airlines, countries, and now accommodations requiring Covid test results, these labs are absolutely packed. We managed to find a lab in Madrid that would take us on a walk in basis only. We arrived at 7:15am for a 7:30am opening time and found a line already waiting. About 45 minutes later, we finally got in, paid our 35 euros and got our antigen test results printed out 30 minutes later. We then were able to Whatsapp our results to the Airbnb and get our check in code. I complained about this to the management. Their rude response was that they had sent us the email informing us of this requirement and that was all that was required. Even to today, there is nothing on their website, or any one else’s for that matter, telling their customers about this requirement. Pretty poor communication in any way of looking at it.

This Airbnb was marginal at best. It started off poorly with the Covid test requirement and did not get much better. The room was functional, but full of sewer flies and dirty linen. Several things did not work in the unit. Requests to get these items resolved resulted in Whatsapp responses stating that they would be taken care of, but never were. It is not worth mentioning the name of this establishment. Just know that it is on the eastern part of town and has 12 units.

Regardless of the Airbnb issues, Sintra is a lovely little town. Our Airbnb was on the eastern side of town, and not in the primary historical area. We were still able to walk to most parts of town and enjoy the sights of the mountains and historical buildings. There is also a train station at the western end of town that connects directly to Lisbon. There were many, many, day trippers using the train to visit for the day and get back to the big city.

As in most cities and towns in Europe, there are many quaint, lovely, historical homes and buildings scattered about.

Our Airbnb was a renovated former ruin. There were still several of these very old buildings surrounding our property. The picture below is of a ruin right behind our Airbnb. Buy it for 40,000 euros and spend hundreds of thousands to fix it up if you want the Portuguese Golden Visa program. Not for us.

Tomorrow it is off to explore Cascais. We will take a day trip to explore this seaside town where the Portuguese rich and famous like to vacation.

August 5 – 9, 2021

We finally got some sleep in our Hotel Regina and started to see the sights of this beautiful city. Our hotel is located right in the heart of the city near the Plaza del Sol. We are able to walk to most of the city sights, which we did over the next few days.

We started off with the Palacio Real. This palace started construction in 1735 and is the official residence of the Royal Family of Spain. However, today it is primarily a museum and is used for official and royal function only. King Filipe VI and his family live in the Zarzuela Palace on a permanent basis.

This is one of the most impressive and authentic palaces we have ever seen, and we have seen a lot of palaces in our travels. Every room and hallway is impeccably furnished and maintained. The palace is massive. We were actually able to see quite a bit and photograph many locations inside the palace, although not all.

Right across the courtyard from the Palacio Real is the Cathedral of Madrid. Very nice building and artwork, but, let’s face it, once you’ve seen one medieval Catholic Cathedral, you’ve pretty much seen them all. That is except for the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona.

After a tough morning of viewing incredible art and religious artifacts, it was time for some lunch. After wandering around a bit we stumbled onto Casa Paco.

Of course my photographer, Queen Andrea, had to have at G&T also.

It turns out that Casa Paco has quite an interesting history. It is the longest running bar & restaurant establishment in the City of Madrid. Heck, there is even a plaque commemorating its’ establishment in 1870.

The restaurant is quite well known for its’ authentic Spanish country food menu. We came back that night for dinner. Very good meal. Kind of eclectic, but very tasty.

After our afternoon libations at Casa Paco we wandered over to the Plaza Mayor. Madrid, like most European cities, is built around a series of plazas. These plazas usually feature some historical content, like a statue, artwork, or some interesting piece of the culture of the city. The Plaza Mayor features the obligatory dead guy on a horse statue and some really interesting murals on the walls.

We wandered through the Plaza Mayor off to our next destination. Along the way, on a typical city street, we passed a couple of local policemen lounging beside their patrol car, as most police through out the world do. However, my lovely wife loves to spot cute cops, so here they are in full protective glory to the citizens of Madrid.

We then headed to a very interesting site in Madrid. It is the Temple of Debod. In the 1960’s Spain helped finance the Aswan Dam on the Nile River. FYI, Andrea and I have been to this dam. It really is an impressive feat of engineering.

As a thank you gift from the Egyptian government to the Spanish government, Egypt actually gave them a real life Egyptian temple. If you look at the history of the Aswan Dam, it flooded hundreds of square miles of Egypt. It flooded hundreds of archeological temples and sites through out the new lake. The government of Egypt was not able to save all of these priceless pieces of history. The main ones they did manage to save were the Temples of Abu Simbel. These temples are mind blowing as to their size and incredible detail. They were broken down into blocks and relocated 65 meters above and 200 meters inland of their original locations.

The Temple of Debod, built in the 2nd century BC, was broken down into manageable pieces, transported to Madrid, and literally reconstructed in the Parque de la Montana in the heart of Madrid. It is quite an amazing gift and an utterly fascinating bit of Egyptian history in the hear of Madrid.

We then headed back to Casa Paco for dinner and called in a night.

The next day, our last full day in Madrid, we took off to see a couple of other Madrid’s major attractions. The first was the Palacio de Crystal, the Glass Palace. This is a very unique building made of, surprise, glass. They built a framework like you would for a stained glass window and made an entire structure out of it. Pretty impressive.

Next door to the grounds of the Palacio de Crystal was the Jardin Botanical (Botanical Garden) of Madrid. This was a very large garden with various themes incorporated into the garden grounds. The gardens were fairly well kept up, although not as pristine as others we have seen in our travels. Still, very worth the trip.

After a very pleasant day wandering around the sights of Madrid, we stumbled across one of it’s landmark attractions on our way back to the Hotel Regina. This is the Puerta de Alcala.

One other very important fact for the tourist coming to Madrid. Other than the fact that it is a gorgeous city, the bartenders here have a very nice habit. When you order a drink of straight liquor, like vodka on the rocks, or whatever, they bring out your glass, start pouring and wait for you to stop them. You get some really good drinks that way. Try it the next time you are in Madrid.

We made it back to the Hotel Regina, got up the next day and took a cab to the airport. This time it wasn’t to fly out. We picked up a rental car and headed west into Portugal for the next portion of the trip. More explanation coming in future posts. Stay tuned!!

August 4 – 9, 2021

We got vaccinated, we got some reservations, we gots to start traveling again.

After a very weird 2020 (just like the rest of the world), we are finally able to get going on our adventures again. Last year we lost out on our trip to Portugal, our cruise up the Volga River in Russia, our trip to Alaska, and our wanderings through Central and South America. Now is catch up time. Or at least we are going to try.

We have been talking about moving to Portugal for a few years now. We would like to get residency, then citizenship, in Portugal to give us more flexibility in staying in Europe on a longer basis. Andrea grew up in England and misses the European flavor of life there. So, we are seriously looking into this possibility.

We are starting this trip off in Madrid. We got some great round trip, non stop, flights from Miami to Madrid at a good price. So, from one Spanish speaking city to another it is.

It was a direct 8 1/2 hour flight. We splurged a bit and got business economy seats that were really comfortable. Great views along the way at 39,000 feet.

So let’s discuss traveling in 2021. The good news is that most countries are letting US citizens into their borders. They miss our money and are trying to get things back to normal.

However, they still have to control this damn virus. So, many new rules have been implemented by various countries and agencies around Europe. The issue is that these rules keep changing constantly and are not enforced similarly within the same locations.

First example; our flight to Madrid. All of the Spanish directives said that we had to be vaccinated and/or have a Covid 19 negative test and have a EU personal data form on a QR code to get into the country. The first issue is that no one in the world accepts our U.S. Covid vaccination card. I don’t know why. It is the same vaccines most countries are using. They just won’t accept our little cards. They want an EU digital vaccination form that foreigners can’t get.

So, the next issue is to provide a negative Covid 19 test within 48 to 72 hours before your arrival in Madrid. At first they wanted the PCR test which can take 48 hours just to get the results. Then, shortly before we left, they decided that a negative Antigen was acceptable. This is fairly easy to get. They stick a swab up your nose and 30 minutes later you can get your result. So, we did this the day before we left (we were both negative and got print outs of the reports).

So, we now have 2 more hurdles to jump in order to go overseas that we didn’t have just a year ago. You need to do the personal information form and then get Covid tested. All of this on top of the issues we are already used to such as getting through airport security and clearing customs once you reach your destination.

Guess what? When we arrived, all they wanted was the personal information QR code to get into the country (plus our passports of course). No one checked us for our negative test at all. Heck, they didn’t even take our temperature when we landed. So much for that requirement. After Spain we traveled to Portugal which has a more stringent Covid 19 testing requirement, but more about that in a later post.

We landed in Madrid about 8:30AM local time and took a 30 minute taxi ride to the hotel. As it was too early to check in, and we couldn’t talk our way into a vacant room upgrade, we went out to explore the city. We were booked in the Hotel Regina, next to the Plaza del Sol right in the heart of Madrid. We immediately found the city very clean, charming, and full of historical and well maintained buildings and areas.

After breakfast in the hotel restaurant, we wandered down into the Plaza del Sol. It is quite a lively area and major meeting point for people coming and going out of the center of the city.

The female bear symbolizes the fertility of the land of Madrid and has been the city’s image for many many years. The tree she is nibbling on is a madrono tree which has a fruit that closely resembles a strawberry. Thus the bear and the strawberry tree.

We then checked out the surrounding streets and buildings and got ourselves a bit familiar with the area.

We went back to the hotel, finally got checked in and collapsed in bed and slept until about 9PM. We went out, got some dinner and walked back through the Plaza del Sol just in time to see a Cuban anti Castro demonstration. As we are from Florida we are accustomed to the Cubans demonstrating pretty regularly, especially in the Miami area. We found it kind of surprising to see the same old themes being spouted out by pretty much the same type of people 6,000 miles away.

The event had about 40 people and was very calm and non aggressive. Most people just wandered by and obviously thought very little about it. Just like us.

Past the demonstration, back into the hotel, and then back to sleep to start another day of exploration tomorrow.

January 30 – Feb 1, 2021

The Covid – 19 vaccinations finally started rolling out for the State of Florida, for priority workers and people 65 years old and older (I’m in the 65 and older crowd). We found there were 2 ways to get them. First was to go through the local county health department. This involves calling into a number and trying to get connected. Reports say that when the number and time is activated, there are 1,000 phone operators waiting to take calls and make appointments. There are 35,000 calls per minute. All of this for 5,000 vaccines. Do the math. Your chances of getting an appointment are very slim. We tried this a time or two and realized it wasn’t going to happen.

The second option is with the Publix (a large local grocery food chain) pharmacy. They use an online system. It opens up at 6AM on specific days when they have vaccine supplies. You log in and wait to try to make an appointment. The good thing about this system is they keep you updated on how many doses are available at the various pharmacies around the state. I logged in the past week and saw there were about 30,000 doses available around the state. I got access to the site after waiting for 35 minutes and tried to book an appointment in my area. No luck, they were all gone. Then I tried West Palm Beach, a couple of hours away. I would book the appointment and the computer would tell me (and I swear I heard the disdain in the message) that this appointment time had already been taken. I tried this for another 30 minutes with about 10 different areas and times.

Finally I saw that the doses were almost gone. At that point I decided to switch to whatever location, wherever it was, had some appointments left. I finally got one in Crestview, FL. This is a mere 9 hours away from where we live. Oh well, time for a road trip in the RV.

Followers of this blog know that we travel around in a 24 foot Coachman Prism RV. Last year we went around most of the country visiting National Parks and cities we wanted to see. We learned that our RV was great for getting from Point A to Point B, but sometimes not so great getting into parks because we were too big, or driving around big cities because, again, we were too big.

So, we learned that our Ford Edge was able to be flat towed (down on all 4 wheels) behind our RV (known as Tin Tin). We got the tow bar and braking system installed a few weeks ago and decided that now was the time to try it out. So, off on a little road trip to northern Florida to get the vaccine.

Well now you may ask; if the vaccine is in Crestview Florida, why the heck did you go to Florala, Alabama? The answer is quite simple. We needed to stay in Alabama to fill in another state in our US map on the back of Tin Tin.

Florala, Al is only about 27 miles north of Crestview, Fl. So, off to Sweet Home Alabama!

We made it to the Lake Jackson, Al RV park late Saturday night. Andrea got there before me, driving the RV. Two hours outside of Ft. Myers I realized I had left my wallet back in our condo (it really is tough getting old). So, I took the Edge back to Ft. Myers to get the wallet while Andrea continued on to the RV park. She got there way before I did.

Lake Jackson RV park is small, but located on the banks of, wait for it, did you guess it, yes, Lake Jackson.

I drove to Crestview, FL the next day to get my first Covid – 19 vaccination.

After the shot, we stayed around for an extra day to take in the sights of this quaint little town.

One other amusing sight we saw was the local pharmacy. It has quite a variety of products advertised on their rooftop sign.

The next day it is back to Ft. Myers, FL. After a quiet 9 hour drive, we are back home safe and sound. Back to Crestview on February 28th. We will find another exciting small town to stay in.

December 26, 2020 – Jan 6, 2021

Andrea finally got released from her Covid quarantine, so it it was time to really explore the island. Over the next few days we saw the Arikok National Forest, the Butterfly Farm, Baby Beach, a few malls (yuck), and basically the whole island. As Aruba is only 20 miles long and 6 miles wide, this is not a very difficult thing to achieve. On our travels we probably saw most of the 106,000 people that live there.

We started off with the Arikok National Forest. The south eastern side of Aruba is a mountainous area that is formed with volcanic rock covered with coral. The whole island was under the sea up until a couple of million years ago.

The forest features some very spectacular rocky coastline on the sea and a couple of caves.

The next day it was off to explore a couple more sites on the north side of Aruba.

First was an old gold mill called Bushiribana. Gold was discovered on Aruba in 1824. From then until 1916 Aruba produced more than 3 million pounds of gold. Pretty good for such a small island.

After the very interesting gold mill, it is off the see The Natural Bridge. This is advertised as one of the main tourist attractions on the island. Unfortunately, it does not live up to it’s billing and expectations.

We spent part of the next day exploring the central part of the island know as Oranjestead. This city is the capital of the country. It has the parliament, the cruise harbor, downtown, hotels and casinos, and some other interesting sights.

I am happy to report that we came out net winners at the casino. My spectacular roulette system netted us $20. Unfortunately Andrea lost $12 back to the demon slot machines. Still, we held our heads high as we walked out, proud winners for the day.

After the casino, off to the beach area.

We wandered around the beach and a little bar and grill caught our attention. Time for refreshments!

This quaint little spot is on the landing approach for planes coming to Aruba. It made for some entertaining sights as the planes seemed to fly right over our heads.

Another very interesting fact we learned while having drinks and lunch at the Surf Side was that the oil rigs we saw out in the ocean were Venezuelan. While Venezuela owns them, they are no longer functional. As a result of the Venezuelan government mismanagement of their oil industry and United States sanctions against the Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro, the oil rigs and the Citgo oil refinery on Aruba have been shut down for several years.

Our last full day on Aruba was spent exploring the Butterfly Farm and Baby Beach. The Butterfly Farm is fairly small, but chock full of exotic butterflies from around the world. The tour guide told us they are under very close scrutiny from the Aruban agricultural inspectors to ensure that none of these vicious butterflies get out and take over the island. She was not really joking. They are afraid of a non native species causing damage to their ecology.

The tour guide told us that it is good luck to have a butterfly land on you. They must really have liked me, because I got two of them to hang out with me for awhile.

In the afternoon, we headed down to Baby Beach. This is a very popular spot for families and people who just want to enjoy the beach and the water. It is on the very south western tip of Aruba. Unfortunately, you have to go through the part of town that has the closed down Citgo Oil Refinery. So, here is the only sketchy part of the island we had seen. Certainly not like a ghetto, and not dangerous, but it was very much the lower income part of the country. You could tell that this area housed the refinery workers when it was open. Now it is home to the more down trodden portion of the population.

We found a very unusual bar and restaurant on Baby Beach that had a Flintstones theme for some reason. We had lunch and drinks and hung out with Dino for a bit.

After a great vacation in Aruba, it was time to head back to the good ol’ U.S.

We said goodbye to the iguana past airport security.

I had a little breakdown in the terminal, but well within the time limit.

Then back to Miami we flew. Then on to the condo in Ft. Myers. Even with the Covid quarantine we had a great time and hope to get back to Aruba sometime in our future.

December 26, 2020 – January 6, 2021

After my first dives with the Mermaid Dive Center, I signed up for another dive trip with them. This time we did 2 different dives on two different airplane wrecks. This was really fascinating, as I have never, in my 30 years of scuba diving, ever dove on a plane wreck.

On the way to the boat in the morning, I ran into a local resident posing for some tourists. After stopping for a bit to visit with him, it was off to the boat to get loaded and off to the first dive.

Diver Randy reporting for duty!

Our first plane wreck dive is on a S 11, a Japanese built aircraft. It was owned by Aruba Airlines. In 2004 the plane was decommissioned and donated to be sunk as a diving wreck by Aruba Airlines. It lies in about 85 feet of water.

The plane fuselage is intact. The seating and interior equipment has been removed to allow divers to enter the body of the aircraft. It is a very amazing experience to see the plane emerge from the water as you swim towards it. Very cool to actually be able to go inside. One dive note, we were not supposed to go into the cockpit, as it can snag dive equipment. My dive buddy, Michael, evidently forgot this warning and went right into it on our dive. He got in a bit of trouble.

After diving the S 11 we had to get some time on the boat to allow the nitrogen that had built up in our bloodstreams to off gas. After about 20 minutes it was down again to see the DC 3. This wreck is different in that they have purposely broken up the wreck. You see different parts of it in different places as you swim towards the rear fuselage section. We explored the wing, an engine, and were then able to enter the rear section of the plane fuselage. Again, a very, very, cool dive.

My dive buddy Michael had an unfortunate incident with his dive camera on this dive. On the DC 3 wreck, we swapped cameras so we could take pictures of each other on our own cameras. After I gave him his camera back, he forgot to secure the camera to him with the wrist band. Somehow it got loose and just floated away on him. We saw it briefly as it went up, but it was too high for us to safely chase it. Even the dive instructor tried to get it, but no luck. Oh well, better a lost camera than a case of the bends.

So, after another very fun dive, it was back to the harbor and back to the Airbnb. Next is off to explore the island with Andrea now that she is out of quarantine.

December 26, 2020 – January 7, 2021

Happy New Year from Aruba everyone! 2021 has to be better than 2020.

We had a quiet New Year’s Eve in our Airbnb while the neighborhood got their party on. They started the fireworks about 3 days ago. I guess just to warm up for the grand occasion.

New Year’s Day was very quiet as the entire island pretty much shut down. Andrea was still in quarantine, but I went out a bit to explore. Still couldn’t get into Arikok National Forest, even though they told me on December 31st it would be open. Oh well, we will get there before we leave.

On Saturday, January 2, 2021 I booked a scuba diving trip with the Mermaid Dive Center in Noord, Aruba. They were scheduled to do 2 reef dives out of the harbor in Oranjestad. Their dive boat is docked in the main harbor where the cruise ships come in. There are a lot of great reefs and wrecks literally just minutes out of the harbor.

As I have not been diving for a couple of years, I had to do a dive refresher course with the shop owner on my first dive. Heck, they even made me watch a dive video and take a test in the morning before the dives. I “complained” about having to take a test first thing in the New Year. They just laughed at me, put a pen in my hand, and said sit down and do it!

Needless to say, I passed with flying colors and went off to get on the boat.

There were a total of 12 divers on the 38 foot dive boat. I went with Carlos Hill, the dive shop owner, on the first dive.

We had to practice a few few dive skills to prove that I wasn’t going to drown or do something stupid. We did this in the first few minutes, then had a great dive on the reef and even got down to 90 feet to explore a small wreck.

After the first dive, Carlos gives his OK to Wendy, his wife and dive master, for me to join the others for the next dive. It is a drift dive (we go with the current and the boat follows us to pick us up at the end). It takes about 10 minutes to get there and down we go again. Be sure to check out the sea turtle at the end.

After the dive we get back to the harbor in about 10 minutes. We had a great day. I then went back to the shop and signed up to dive a couple of plane wrecks in a few days. Stay tuned to see the blog about that adventure!

December 26, 2020 – January 3, 2021

Andrea and I had just spent the last three months doing a temporary hotel assignment in Hays, Kansas. What was supposed to last about a month, lasted over 3 months. To say we were itching to get back on the road was an understatement.

During this Covid year of 2020 we have had 2 major trips cancelled on us due to Covid. One was a great expedition to Russia on Viking River Cruises. We were supposed to sail the Volga River between St. Petersburg and Moscow in September 2020. As Russia has been hit very hard with Covid infections and deaths, they have shut down their borders to any foreign travelers. That included us.

Next we tried to book a cruise from San Juan Puerto Rico down in the the southern Caribbean in December and visit several Central American and South American countries. This time Royal Caribbean shut us down.

Next, we finally got a little smarter (maybe) and tried to book a trip that did not involve a cruise ship or river boat. Yay, we finally scored. Aruba just recently opened their borders to international air flights. We booked our flights, Airbnb apartment, a car, and we were off!

Their only condition is that you present a Negative Covid test dated with in 3 days of your arrival into Aruba, or take a Covid test at the airport. As we could not guarantee a test result from Florida within this time frame, we opted for the test upon arrival at the Aruba airport. No problem, right?

Guess what? We both tested Positive! What the heck? How did this happen? We both got tested on December 19th as we left Hays, KS and were negative. How the heck did we turn up positive 7 days later?

However it happened, we got quarantined into our Airbnb apartment upon arrival. Andrea was a strong Positive. I was a weak Positive. Luckily we were both asymptomatic, so we really didn’t feel bad at all.

We had food and supplies delivered to us by a local grocery store, plus we had picked up some food on the way to the Airbnb before we knew we were supposed to quarantine. At least we weren’t going to starve to death, or more importantly, run out of toilet paper.

Then we got a break. Or at least I did. They let me take a second test 3 days after arrival. Hallelujah, I came back negative. I get to travel around the island and explore a bit. Andrea is still stuck in the apartment, but has a second Health Department opinion coming on Thursday. Maybe she will get a get out of jail free card also.

So, I went off to explore the northern part of the island. The Faro Blanco lighthouse is there, next to California Beach.

There is a great restaurant and bar on the top of the hill with the lighthouse. Of course, I had to stop and have a beer and enjoy the view.

You can see the whole northern part of the island from this lighthouse hilltop.

After my refreshment, time to head down south and explore a bit more. Unfortunately, I found the island’s major shopping mall. I guess Andrea will drag me here when she gets out of quarantine.

I kept heading back south, past the High Rise Hotel district and saw some great beaches and sights along the way.

I kept heading south and found some more secluded spots. No bars though. Don’t know if I like that aspect.

A little further south and I hit the windsurfers and kitesurfers. The windsurfers use sails on basically surfboards. The kitesurfers use kites on small surf boards, like water skis.

Check out the neighborhood and these crazy surfers.

I then found a local scuba diving shop, Mermaid Sports Divers, and booked a 2 tank reef dive for this coming Saturday. I am really looking forward to this as I have not been diving in a few years and Aruba is supposed to have some of the best reefs and shipwrecks in the world to dive. Stay tuned for the next post and find out how the dives go.