Curacao Day 2: Iguana Love

After finally getting a good night's sleep, we woke up about 9:30 the next morning. We sat on the back porch for a while, enjoying the sea view and the wildlife and planning our day. We were on island time.

Suddenly there was a commotion to our left. Two iguanas were rolling around next to the porch. We thought they were fighting at first but then...

We got our dive gear together and drove over to Blue Bay, a condo development not far from our house. Diveversity dive shop is located there on a nice beach from which you can shore dive. We got registered with the dive shop and they gave us a tour of the facilities.

We decided to grab some lunch at the on-site restaurant, Azzuro, before heading into the water. Mike had some more beef carpaccio (this would become an island staple for him) and I had fish and chips.

After lunch, we suited up and headed into the water together; however, it soon became apparent that we needed to dive separately. I was having multiple problems with leg cramps, ear clearing, and mask flooding. Not to mention my panic was setting in. I was going to stay shallow. Mike set off for the depths. He went to 127 feet, seeing lots of lionfish. He left the camera at home for this dive. I stayed in the 25-foot range and unfortunately, didn't see much of anything. It was not a good first dive for me. So afterwards, we sat at the beach bar and had pina coladas.

We went home and got cleaned up for dinner. We had reservations at a restaurant called Kome in the Pietermaai district of Curacao. This area is across the bridge from Willemstad. It's an older part of the island currently being revitalized with hotels, restaurants, and bars.

Kome is a tapas restaurant so we started with a couple of small plates of yellowfin tuna tartare with yucca chips and shrimp and funchi which included tasso ham and a poached egg in a Cajun cream sauce.

The tuna was good but the shrimp and funchi was outstanding! It was so good, in fact, that Mike ordered another plate. I went with the octopus a la plancha--octopus with chorizo, romesco, baby potato, and salsa verde.

The octopus was also outstanding! Even though it was our first full day on Curacao, this meal was our favorite of the week.

After dinner, we drove back to the casino to gamble a bit. Mike played some roulette and I stuck with the slots. The woman on the machine NEXT TO ME won a $1K slot! I couldn't believe it. I lost $10.

Afterwards, we went back to the house and relaxed on our porch.