Back from Vacation!

Many of you may not know that we just got back from an awesome, week-long Caribbean vacation. We didn't even know that we were going on vacation until about 3 or 4 weeks ago, so it was a bit spontaneous. We took a scuba trip to Curaçao in the Caribbean. It is a small island next to Aruba just north of Venezuela. Apparently the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved in 2010 so now Curaçao is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and most people (at least at the resort we were at) spoke Dutch to us until we told them we needed English. 

Our main reason for taking this trip was to do some scuba diving. We did two boat dives every day and on some days did another shore dive or two. It was very windy and pretty choppy out on the ocean in the boat. I got a little seasick the first day or two but after that a lady in our group gave me some Bonine for motion sickness and it helped a lot. The diving was great. We saw so many fish and I was astounded at how many varieties of coral there are on the reefs there! We saw barracuda, sea turtles, french angel fish, parrot fish, rock fish, trunk fish, trumpet fish, banded shrimp, lion fish, sea stars, seahorse, a giant lobster, spotted eagle rays, several varieties of moray eels, snake eels, flounder, flamingo tongue, squid, a flying gurnard, lots of flying fish, and various other Caribbean reef fish.  The weather was lovely and we enjoyed the beach and being outdoors a lot. There were lots of lizards all over the place, including little geckos that would fit nicely on a quarter.

Here is a selection of pictures from our trip. It was hard to narrow it down to this many! I'm going to put more on Facebook, so look there also in a day or two.

Probably a spotted moray eel.

Tugboat

A parrotfish. They eat coral and were very numerous and had many color variations.

A lionfish. We saw many of this invasive species.

Chain moray eel.

Flamingo Tongue. This is a snail that turns it's mantle out over it's shell.

Spotted Eagle Ray

Puffer fish

Swimming spotted eel

Shrimp-like creatures.

Spotted eagle ray

Moray eel. These things were scary!

Snake eel

Raaaaawwwwr!

Tarpon

Saba tugboat

Flounder

Squid

Iguana

Fun Weekend with Jessica

We had an awesome weekend. My sister, Jessica, came for a quick weekend visit and we spent Saturday doing fun things together. 

First, we went to the South Durham Farmer's Market, but only for about 3 minutes, because it is quite small and we just got lots of produce from the state Farmer's Market.  There was one booth that I might go back to next week. They had many varieties of pepper plants, and since we have been neglectful and not started our garden this year, I want to get several to plant. We usually do peppers but are disappointed in the selection we've seen at the garden centers around us. We've been meaning to fix up our soil before planting but we've been putting it off so we haven't planted.

Next, we went to the Conservator's Center outside of Mebane, NC. They rescue primarily big cats, but also some other cats and other animals. They probably have about 30 lions right now, 5+ tigers, 4 wolves, a leopard, lynx, bobcat, mountain lion, caracals, servals, ocelots, genets, jungle cats, and more.  But for us, the one who stole the show were the binturongs. They are Southeast Asian animals that look most like ROUS's from Princess Bride. They are excellent climbers and the guide told us the one pictured below doesn't ever like to touch the ground and just goes around on the old firehose that is strung up around the enclosure. They have a prehensile tail that they use to balance and steady themselves when climbing trees.

Binturong

Binturong - Their tails is very big.

A serval. I think of them as awkward squat cheetahs.

Leopard. So pretty!

One of the many lions. They all roared for us with a little encouragement.

Tigers

Arthur Tiger. He's on Facebook!

That afternoon, after a quick nap and lunch, Jeran took Jessica and then me on a motorcycle ride. It was perfect weather all day!

Then we went rock climbing at a local indoor place. We had a great time and got some good exercise.

We all did a chimney climb that had no holds, just walls on three sides. It took some longer than others... but we all made it to the top.

Then we had a late dinner and called it a day. What an awesome weekend! Thanks for visiting, Jessica!

Lions in the news

Some of you may have already seen one or both of these, but today I watched two related news clips about lions and babies:

babys-zebra-hoodie-attracts-hungry-lion-at-oregon-zoo

babies-draw-attention-lion-once-again

Not quite sure what I think about it, but I don't know that I would leave my child sitting right there. Especially on the zebra one. Poor lions.