Curacao is nice and Nolo and Monica are wonderful hosts.

Curacao is beautiful island in the tropics. This is where we ate dinner our first night. Living like this could become habit forming in about another six or seven hours.  

Nolo and Monica live across the bay to the right. They are marvelous hosts.

Of course the big deal for me was completing my SCUBA dive course at Ocean Encounters http://oceanencounters.com/en/  @www.oceanencounters.com and beginning underwater diving. Well that has happened. With the help of a great instructor and the attraction of being in a saltwater fish tank with lots of exotic fish, coral and things to see, it was super.

A few times as the instructor and I were on our way down to the bottom, I struggled a bit equalizing pressure with my ears, but on my fourth dive getting to 60 feet depth was fairly easy with only one episode where I had to stop and go up a bit before continuing down. Something about going slow being rewarding is counter to my thought process. However it is beginning to "sink" in.

Just about all the photo documentation we are going to get is here. We swam out past the rock barrier, then along a shelf for a distance with a gently sloping coral reef with tropical fish at depth about 20-30 feet. The shelf dramatically increases the slope of the drop at about 40-50 feet depth to a sharp drop and the variety of sea life and coral change dramatically.

 Final adjustment for goggles and, boy-oh-boy, while diving it seems I clear them almost constantly.

Yeah that first deep dive was a thrill. 

One evening we went for a sunset cruise along the island shore down to Spanish Waters, a large residential golf development in a bay. Nolo packed a full picnic dinner with ample drinks and refreshments. Yes, it was delightful.

and the sunset beautiful too. 

 Patt liked riding in the boat.

Returning to the harbor, the beach entry for dives is to the left between the beach chairs. The dock for Ocean Encounters is just behind the white boats in the back left.

Monica preparing to tie the boat as it enters the slip to the left of the yellow building.

And on more than one occasion I have spent in excess of 90 minutes in this position listening to the breeze in the palms and feeling the sun on me and wondering where the time went when someone spoke my name out of the blue.  Things are getting tough here with Nolo and Monica. You might want to think twice prior to visiting.