Vista 8 Day Southern Caribbean June 2-10, 2018

Our first beach stop was Playa Porto Mari

The beach looked great....

....but I can't tell you too much about it because I spent the whole hour in the water snorkeling! The beach has chairs, umbrellas, a bar and grill, and a scuba shop.

The water at the beach is crystal clear. The beach is lined on both sides with small cliffs. This was the first area that I explored and there were some little alcoves in the cliffs that you could go into and explore.

The snorkeling in the shallow area is okay. It has a sandy bottom interspersed with rocks with coral and sea life. There is also a platform that you can swim out to and jump off of.

If you swim further out the depth drops down to about 40 feet along a small slope. This is where the really good coral is at. This is a first class reef to scuba dive on. Its excellent for snorkeling albeit you will be viewing everything from about 20-40 feet. I'm very good at free diving so I could go down and hold my breath to see stuff. I would have to say that this is one of the better reefs that I have dived on in my life.

Curacao Part 3

Our next stop was....

This park is known for its wave battered cliffs and sea caves. The Irie tours guide will lead everyone around the park and down into one of the sea caves. Here are some views of the park

Here is a panorama. The landscape is very barren and harsh.

A view from the shore:

A view inside the sea cave:

A view from one of the cliffs. Its really cool to see the waves crashing along the shore.

Our third stop on the tour in Curacao was a small fisherman's wharf (really a pier that went out into the water). The fisherman will clean their fish and throw the leftovers in the water. This attracts other fish and sea turtles. This beach is known for the sea turtles. You can go on the wharf to view the turtles or swim and snorkel in the water. We saw about 4-5 turtles. The beach itself isn't that great but the water is good for snorkeling. I swam out to where the boats were anchored and found a really great reef in about 30 feet of water.

Here is a picture from the beach:

Our last beach stop was Playa Forti which is known for the cliffs that you can dive off of.

Here is a panorama of the beach

Here is a close up of the cliffs:

I didn't do the cliff jump as it looked a little too risky. Its about a 40 foot drop off the cliff and you have to jump outward to avoid hitting the rocks below. The water is about 10-14 feet deep. I spoke to a few people who did jump off. They said it is a difficult track just to get up to the cliffs--very narrow path with cactus on both sides. I watched several people jump off the cliffs. I would highly recommend that you have a local who is familiar with the cliffs show you which direction to jump off. No one got hurt but a few people who jumped said they felt like the broke their butt. My wife had to help one lady out of the water who got too much water up her nose and was having trouble swimming. The Irie tours guides are not going to lead you up the cliffs or anything. I also want to point out if you were to get injured, well help is a long way away since we are on the rural side of the island.

Overall this was a great beach to visit. We were there right before sunset and we spent the whole time swimming and snorkeling. I saw several turtles and a large school of fish. You can explore the underwater part of the cliff where there is coral, sponges, and lots of fish.

Since this was our last stop we were able to watch the sunset. It was hazy all throughout the cruise so the sunset was just okay.

It was about a 40 minute drive back to the Port. We arrived back at night to see our ship all lit up. It was a very pretty site:

Overall this was one of the best excursions I have been on. I want to point out that they don't serve food and on the tour since it was a later tour many of the facilities were closed since we got to these places after 5 pm. Other than our first beach the bathrooms at all of the places were closed and there were no places to buy food either (after the first beach). Keep in mind this was a later afternoon-early evening tour. If your ship arrives in Curacao earlier in the day then I am sure this would be different.

Our last stop was in Aruba. Our excursion this day was the Jolly Pirates Tour (https://www.jolly-pirates.com/cruise/sail-snorkel-swim-and-swing). This was the second time that we have done the tour.

I would highly recommend this tour with the exception of anyone who has small kids who aren't good swimmers. I would say its good for kids 8-9 and older. For our next visit to Aruba I will probably try something different since we've done this tour twice.

You will need to take a taxi from the port to the beach where the tour is located. Its a $14 ride total (not per person). We meet another couple and shared a taxi with them to the beach. It turns out that they were also from the Tampa area and we hung out with them on the tour and the rest of the cruise. Its always great to make new friends.

Here is a picture of the beach where we boarded the ship. The marina is actually at the beach.

Here is a picture on board the ship. You can see the rope swing at the front. The back half of the boat has shade and if you want some sun you can go to the front.

Here is a picture from one of our snorkel spots

The trip has three snorkel stops. You are in the water for about 25 minutes at each stop. The first stop is a WW2 ship wreck in about 60 feet of water. Its about a 10 minute boat ride out to it. The water was choppy and there was a decent current. They only recommend that strong swimmers try to snorkel here. The wreck is teeming with coral and fish. Despite the choppy water and current I enjoyed the snorkel here.

Our last two snorkel stops were in about 10 feet of water. The second one had a sandy bottom interspersed with rocks that had coral, sponges, and fish. Our last stop was close to the cliffs along the shore which also had coral and fish.

We remained anchored at our last spot and after snorkeling they opened up the rope swing from the bow of the ship. The rope swing is a lot of fun, I did it about 3-4 times.

Lunch was served at the last spot. It is a BBQ lunch with chicken, ribs, potato salad, and cole slaw. They actually prepare the food off the ship and then bring it to the ship by boat. The tour also comes with open bar with rum punch and pina coladas served in small cups.

The tour is about four hours. When you are done you can stay at the beach (its a great beach). You will have to call for a taxi which you can do from the Jolly Pirates building or from the tiki bar there.

Here is a picture of the beach