The Curacao Cure - Part 6

Curacao Sea Aquarium

Every morning, Katy and I snorkeled at the Habitat’s beach and one morning we drove over to the beach at Porto Marie.

There were some topless female bathers there which we told the boys about. They had wanted us to take pictures. Men! We bought refreshments before we went into the aquamarine water. The beach was lovely. This was the dive the boys went on where cement structures had been placed to augment the reef and it was not far from our hotel. Snorkeling there was pretty much the best I ever experienced in my life aside from a few places in the Cayman Islands. But, you know, how does one compare heavens? I saw a fish there that was mostly black with tiny iridescent blue spots that we could not identify and later in discussion with experienced divers decided it was a juvenile of a butterfly fish or a damsel. Anyhow, Katy and I had a great time snorkeling there.

One afternoon, we drove to the Curacao Sea Aquarium. We both love Sea Aquariums. Like all of the days we were in Curacao, it was gorgeous and sunshiny. The walk up to the aquarium was a boardwalk. The office was a bright side wooden freighter with the cabin painted white. We got some little paper maps and they told us the boat was the Dutch minesweeper “Woerden”. What is not to love?

We decided to look at the animals that were kept out doors first. We fell in love with the sea lions (who wouldn’t?). We watched their antics for a while and moved on to the shark tank.

Sharks are kind of boring, unless they are being fed, they just kind of swim around.

Sea turtles, on the other hand, are such clowns! They look pretty goofy to start with with their big clunky looking shells and yet they are so graceful in the water. For reptiles, they have such big soulful eyes. They are just plain cute and fun to watch. Katy fell in love with several of them.

Then we went inside and looked at the aquaria. We saw remora, conches, giant sunfish, lobsters, and all kinds of saltwater fish. Then we went to the touch tank.

Katy was very amused by the sea cucumbers, which she likened to human turds. She didn’t want to touch them at first, but I had seen and dissected them before so I eagerly lifted and handed her one. Amid plenty of squeals, she held one and declared it “Gross!” with a big grin. I just loved making her smile. Next we examined the starfish. I showed her the tube feet and explained that those enabled the starfish to climb glass. She took a very close look at them and even touched them. We must have disturbed every starfish and conch splashing around in that tank but we had a great time. Isn’t that what the tank is for?

We also saw the pink flamingos in the middle of the center area.

We bought some grilled chicken for lunch and saw a cute topless toddler that we took a picture of so that we could tease Woody and Sean by saying that we saw a cute topless girl and got a picture of her. We giggled thinking of it.

Then we went into the underwater boat and saw a diver feeding the fish from there. We totally missed the dolphin show. Sigh. But here are photos of it anyhow.

We loved the Sea Aquarium and were reluctant to leave. It was a tiny slice of heaven captured for those who cannot get out into the wild and enjoy it.