Beach Bear Loves Aruba!!

 

Beach Bear was packaged up and sent home with Emily, a Custer Park student. Once at Emily's, the bear was was then packed in a suitcase by Em's mom and dad, who were headed out to celebrate their Ten Year Anniversary on the island of Aruba.

(Must be something about bears, islands, and anniversaries! Beach Bear was originally purchased on the island of Hawaii by Mrs. Johnson, who was there celebrating her 30th Anniversary with her husband!)

Listed below are highlights from Beach Bear's Aruba Journal.

 

 

Day 1: Up @ 3 AM!

Beach Bear spent the night at a hotel in Chicago. Next, we were on our way to the airport @ 4 AM! We finally arrived in Aruba 1:40 PM.

Wow! Beach Bear is going to love this - lots of beach here!! Beautiful white sand and that salty ocean water!! Beautiful weather - 85 degrees all year 'round. If it does rain, it doesn't last long.

 

Day 2

A relaxing day on the beach. We went snorkeling at the resort and saw some beautiful fish. How cool! We want to see more of the underwater. Tomorrow we are going scuba diving! (NOTE: SCUBA stands for: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus!!)

Look at some of our beach pictures!

 

 

Day 3

Went scuba diving 40 feet down to the ocean floor! the site was an old airplane wreck. We saw a propeller and some pieces of the plane but the most important was the beautiful fish! Blue, yellow, stripes ... so many colors ... all so bright and vibrant! We even saw a sea horse! he was yellow and about 4 inches long. It's a whole other world under water!

 

Day 4

Today we went sightseeing. We followed the coast SE of Oranjestad to Baby Beach near the Colorado lighthouse. There we enjoyed some awesome snorkeling! the land here is very rocky with some areas a black volcanic rock. there are no volcanos here on the island. We also passed some huge cactuses and wild goats and donkeys! We left Baby Beach and continued along the coast to the Fontein Indian Caves and the Boca Prins Sand Dunes. The Indian drawings in the caves didn't make much sense to us, but Beach Bear enjoyed the cave tour.

We then went to the Natural Bridge, which was made by the water crashing into rock. We also visited the Bushiribana Gold Smeltery, which closed in 1872. Surely Beach Bear was getting pretty hungry after all that sight seeing!

Look at some of the pictures we took while sightseeing today! Click HERE.

 

 

 

Pictures of Mahi-Mahi, windmill, and more.

 

 

Day 5

Today we went deep sea fishing! We caught a Mahi-Mahi and two Wahoos. Beach Bear decided he like the beach better. The big waves in the sea made him sea-sick. We also went sightseeing to the north end of the island to see the Dutch Windmill (built in 1804) and the Bubali Bird Sanctuary. Beach Bear like watching the pelicans. After that, we visited the California Lighthouse and saw more wild goats!

 Day 6

Time to go home - Beach Bear would love to sty but really misses everyone back home. Maybe he can visit again. It was a beautiful trip!

Thanks to Graphic Garden for graphics.