Curacao's Hato International Airport.
A view of All West Apartments, our home for a week.
All West Apartments, a steal of a bargain.
Our deck.
A panoramic view from the deck of our apartment.
Sunset cocktails on our private deck.
Some of the many fishing boats in the small bay in front of our apartment.
Nighttime service at the church across the street from All West Apts.
Playa Kalki, one of the many gorgeous beaches on Curacao.
Playa Grote Knip.
Playa Lagun.
A panoramic view of gorgeous Playa Lagun.
Cassie swims with the fishes.
Reef balls: artificial reef objects to help reestablish coral growth.
Green sea turtle.
A small school of squid.
Squid!
School of fish.
Scarlet striped cleaner shrimp.
A sea horse in about 15 feet of water, right in front of our apartment!
The largest lobster we've ever seen.
Sharptail eel. We saw multiple, different species of eel on every dive.
Goldentail moray eel.
A boat dive at Watamula, the island's premiere dive site.
The Blue Room: only mere inches at the mouth, but once you duck under, it opens up into a large cavern with sunlight filtering through the water.
The giant star coral formations at Watamula.
Brain coral.
Exploring the island... here, a fence made of cactus.
Curacao, like neighbors Aruba and Bonaire, lies outside the hurricane belt -- which ensures mild weather year-round, but also an arid climate.
Cactus instead of palm trees on these beaches!
The beach at Playa Porto Marie, my favorite dive of the trip.
St. Willibrordus Church and cemetery.
A panoramic view of the Curacao countryside, including St. Willibrordus Church.
The bay of Bullenbaai.
Lunch at Habitat Curacao after a dive on the resort's house reef. We made lots of new friends!
One of our lunch mates.
Begging for lunch scraps.
Lots of colorful native birds.
Another picture-perfect sunset from our private apartment deck at All West.
Most nights, we saw thunderstorms on the horizon, but they never came ashore (until our last day, which you'll see).
A tube-dwelling anemone in full bloom on one of our night dives.
The sand bottom looked like an alien planet at night.
Cassie spotted this eel, nearly completely buried in the sand.
A view of Willemstad, the capital of Curacao.
The postcard shot of downtown Willemstad, with the architecture that earned it UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
The floating pontoon bridge in Willemstad.
The floating market, with goods and produce brought from the Venezuelan mainland 50 miles away.
Exploring Willemstad's alleyways.
A moment of solitude.
On a tip from Sunshine, the owner of Sol Food restaurant near our apartment, we sought out lumpias (fried egg rolls) at Alaska Snack Bar.
The lumpias were awesome.... YUM!
Our weeklong apartment rental included a truck and unlimited scuba tanks, giving us the freedom to dive wherever and whenever we wanted.
The so-called 'iron shore' that Curacao and Bonaire are known for. Be sure to wear your booties!
The fattest barracuda we have ever seen. The picture doesn't really show it.
Scorpionfish, master of camouflage.
Banded coral shrimp.
I get up close and personal with an arrow crab.
Tube sponges galore!
A shortstripe goby hides inside a tube sponge.
The fisherman's dock near All West Apartments.
A pelican hopes for some fish scraps.
One of the fishermen cleans his catch of the day (wahoo).
On our last day at All West Apts, the rain finally caught up to us, and came down in buckets for several hours.
After the rain stopped, we checked out and moved over to Kura Hulanda Lodge, where we stayed one final night in the resort's Tree House.
Our Tree House was a safari tent sitting on a platform in the trees.
Our view from the Tree House, with iguanas sitting in the cacti and parrots flying overhead.
The deck outside the safari tent.
Underneath the Tree House platform, we had an outdoor privy and shower.
Parrots hanging out.
While we relaxed by the pool, I snuck back to our Tree House....
....ordered champagne and blew up 30 balloons.....
....and popped the question to Cassie when we returned to the Tree House! You could say the trip ended with a beginning....
