Curacao 2026 (page 7 of 9)

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Day 7 - Feb 13, 2026

Friday the Thirteenth! It didn't cross our minds under our dive master PC (Paul) mentioned it to us. After starting out with a breakfast of muesli and yogurt plus some cheese on the side, we headed to the dive shop for our last day of diving.

We had two dives - Smokey's and Newport. Both were near the south end of the island, beyond where anyone is settled, so the coral is healthy and underwater is pristine. The visibility this week has been OK - not the greatest, but you can still see quite a ways. There was rough water and extra wind last week that had everything stirred up. Today we saw a little bit of everything. Mike saw a red fish with white spots on both dives - he got a picture of it at one point but the DM couldn't ID it and it wasn't in the fish book. We also saw a very large southern sting ray that was resting on the bottom. It watched us all swim over it but didn't move. It was easily 6ish feet long but partially buried in the sand. That was quite the highlight. We also saw a Princess Triggerfish a ways off, a couple different adult drums, some Flamingo Tounges (snails), and the list goes on & on. Both dives had so much different life in them, they were really impressive. Back on shore, we had to go to the desk to get a partial refund from the night dive (as it was changed from a boat dive to shore dive) and we used the credit to buy lion-fish-fin earrings for Greta. That's now 87 dives for each of us.

After that, we headed back to the hotel to drop off the wet stuff and change clothes. We walked up to Kura Hulanda Village, as it was advertised as a selection of boutique shops and eateries. It was pretty but really aimed at people looking for high-end clothing or food. From there, we walked back to Punda to try to find our wall hanging. We visited different shops but there wasn't a lot of "local artwork". We did find one location that had local artist paintings; we found one of a trumpet fist that we both liked. We looked some more and didn't see anything else that even remotely came close to it, so we went back and bought it. It was a shop we'd visited the night before, but hadn't been looking at paintings at that time, and this one was hidden behind a few others. From there we wandered a bit to get Greta's turtle. We already knew we wouldn't get anything locally made but at least found one in a shop that was a pretty turquoise color. We wandered the streets & the floating market a bit more, and then headed back to the hotel.

We cooled off for a couple hours and had some cheese, mustard & crackers. We made reservations at La Boheme in Punda for 7:30 but decided to leave the room early (around 6) to have a drink while watching the sunset from the pool area of the hotel. What we didn't realize until we got there was that the two cruise ships in port were directly in the way of the setting sun. From what we could tell, nowhere would allow us to watch the sun without walking way out of our or else driving somewhere. We walked into the Rif Fort next door to see if we could at least get to the top level and the manager at the "Steak & Ribs" restaurant waved us up. We were seated at a wonderful ocean side table but the cruise ships still blocked the sunset. We were entertained by crabs scuttling and chasing each other down below and looking out at the water, though, and enjoyed a cool drink while the sun set behind the ships.

From there we walked back over the bridge to Punda, walked a bit and then got to the restaurant at 7 pm. We noticed it was very busy and thought to ask if we could be seated early. There was only one open table, and as we got close, could see it was reserved for us, so we had no problem with arriving early. There were two older men singing and playing guitar. At one point, a younger guy got up and sang "Imagine" while all his buddies recorded him and applauded. In the meantime, we'd ordered a drink, a Mango Mohito for Mike and Mr. Passion for Greta, and dinner. Greta ordered the beef stew/stoba - local cuisine and Mike ordered Tequila shrimp. Unfortunately, they were out of the stew so she opted for Ceviche instead. Our food was good but the music and atmosphere were divine. We shared a piece of cheese cake with some sort of exotic fruity topping and it was wonderful. We also had another drink, a Mr. Passion and Blue Margarita. In the meantime, the earlier young guy got up and sang "Yesterday" and then two other guys asked to perform. One took the guitar of one of the regular performers and the other took out a tenor sax, and they performed a song with one of the original guitar players. The guy singing/playing guitar was REALLY good! Overall, it was a perfectly relaxing evening. From there we walked back to the hotel to watch a bit of Olympics before going to sleep before our last full day on the island.

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