It’s Always Sunny in Aruba

We’ve been in Aruba for almost a month now. We were surprised that there are so many people visiting here in the summer, but as you can see from the image above, it’s been between 85 and 86 everyday we’ve been here with humidity around 60%. After looking at the weather forecasts for the USA, we apologize for this bounty of excellent weather.

The kicker though is the breeze, which is amazing and constant. When John wrote this paragraph, he was sitting outside in the shade in the middle of a fancy mall while Nancy got her haircut. The breeze is so nice you can get fooled and get a sunburn, as is evidenced by all the tourists walking around with red necks arms legs, and noses.

One thing we’ve noticed, the majority of tourists stay at the fancy resorts and hotels that line the beach—and the beach here is beautiful with crystal clear turquoise water and super white sand. We, however, are staying in a newly built gated community about a mile from the nearest beach. The community has a club house with a restaurant, bar, gym, tennis courts, and three swimming pools.

As we travel throughout the back roads, we see a different Aruba than those who only stay at the hotels and resorts. There are so many areas with tiny homes and yet, an abundance of grocery stores. Really, there are more grocery stores in Aruba than anywhere we’ve traveled. You can go two miles down the road and see five grocery stores. And the interesting thing is most of them are owned by Chinese families: there’s Ling and Son’s (a fancy Giant/Acme- type store that’s our favorite) and then there are lots of tiny Mom and Pop stores.

Speaking of food…come on, this wouldn’t be a John and Nancy blog post without mentioning food. The first night here, we went to a Lebanese restaurant that a young woman opened a few miles from our place. Excellent Lebanese food on a back road in Dutch Aruba.

Speaking of the Dutch…. If you’ve ever been to Amsterdam, you may have seen restaurants that have something called Rijsttafel or “Rice Table.” The Dutch have a rich history with Indonesia, starting when they arrived in the 16th century looking for spices. The Dutch were inspired by the delicious Indonesian cuisine and brought back the concept of Rijsttafel. It consists of many small dishes, similar to tapas. The dishes include rice prepared in different ways along with egg rolls, satay, sambals (like a spicy chutney), fish, fruit, pickles and nuts. There can be as many as 40 different dishes. In Aruba, there are three or four places that have mini rice tables. Instead of 40 courses, they have about five. We’ve yet to try one, but it’s on our list!

Another Dutch specialty are broodjes. A typical Dutch lunch will consist of a whole wheat sandwich with cheese or meat or fish—a broodje. In Amsterdam, there are broodje shops that build the best sandwiches with wonderful Dutch cheeses, meats, and seafood. We have yet to find a broodje shop anywhere, but we’ve got four more weeks. We’ll keep looking.

More about food…. the other day we went to lunch at a place called Zeerover. It’s on the water in a tiny out of the way place to the south of the island. You walk up to a counter and order your food. All they have is the catch of the day, be it grouper or some other fish and shrimp. They take your order then cook it while you wait at your table. We had a whole red snapper cooked head on with fresh caught shrimp cooked in a seasoning similar to Old Bay. It’s served in a plastic basket with tons of paper napkins. It’s pretty much peel and eat and pick at the fish with wooden forks—not for those who like fancy restaurants, but fun. We have to admit we also had a few beers (they were only 8 oz. bottles though!)

The red snapper and shrimp, the late lunch crows, the boats along the dock.

Oh yea, back to telling you about our place. Our place has two bedrooms, three bathrooms, a big dining room/kitchen, and a living room—all with central air. But the main attraction is outside. We have an outdoor kitchen with grill, separate burner, and refrigerator. The outside is under a roof with couches and a table that seats six. The real main attraction is our own pool. Ok, so it’s only 10’ by 6’, but it’s great for a dip to cool off, plus it’s got an adjacent mini basketball net. Nancy spends the morning out on the couch reading the news and playing online crossword with friends back in the US and John spends most afternoons out there reading.

The pool with a John-size net, the outdoor lounge and grill area, the clubhouse entrance.

We both promised ourselves that we would use the gym and try to get back in shape after nine months of decadence…. eating and drinking all those interesting things available in Italy and Mexico. And we’ve done pretty well. Most days we both go to the gym; some days Nancy goes twice! We’ve also have not had pasta, pizza, baguettes, ice cream, cookies, snacks, or potato chips since July 1st! (That statement alone warrants an exclamation point!) Plus, we’ve cut out the beers with lunch (except that one day at Zeerovers). While in Mexico, we were having two beers each with lunch pretty much every day. So now we’re 26 days in and neither of us feel as though we’ve lost a pound. Isn’t that always the way?

Besides working out and watching what we eat, we’ve been actively looking for an eventual place to call our home base when we become semi-nomads. We mentioned in an earlier post that we really liked the Portland floating home vibe.

After finishing our northwestern travels, we stayed in touch with the two realtors we met in Portland and made them aware that we were interested and to keep us posted if anything comes on the market that meets our criteria. Wouldn’t you know it? About 10 days after arriving here, one of the realtors let us know of a home that the owners were getting ready to put on the market and had not yet been listed. Over the next few days, we saw photos and videos of the place as well as asking the owners (though the realtor) a ton of questions. One criterion is that we’d like to be on an end (no neighbors in front of us) and another is to have a west facing view. Darned if this place doesn’t meet both. The house was built at a construction company’s facility and moved by tugboat to the floating platform on which it rests.

Picture of home being moved. The house in its mooring (green roof), the kitchen.

While the house has many of the features we want, e.g., three bedrooms, two baths, a large second floor deck off the living room, a boathouse/garage, it was built in 1996 and nothing much has changed since then; the master bath has a huge tub but no shower. All in all, the master bath is very dated, as are many of the other rooms. Luckily, the price is reasonable considering the renovations that we’ll need to do if we were to buy it.

Master bath in need of modernization

Since this place hasn’t been listed, there was no buyers sheet explaining all of the things one needs to know when thinking of buying a house. Things like the square footage, the yearly taxes and HOA fees, for example.

So, it was a back and forth between us and the realtor who, because nothing has been formalized, must then email or call the owner and relate our questions to him. Then the answers get sent back to her and then sent on to us. And, as we read and learn more and more about floating homes, our questions become more than your average land home questions. This past week we’ve learned so much about float systems. You can see in the pictured cross section below how the “float” is constructed.

Plus, once a float is constructed it is given a rating between 1 and 5. Marine companies employ a diver to go under the house to evaluate the condition of the logs and stringers that constitute the float. So before buying a floating home, the potential buyer usually has not only a regular home inspection but also a float inspection. Who knew? Now we do!

Besides sussing out information on the age and condition of the house and float, John has spent some time looking at boats. Hey, if you have a house that floats on the river, you gotta have a boat! He’s been looking at boats that can be used either for fishing or pulling a skier or tube filled with kids.

Anyone who intimately knows John knows his (and his brother’s) history with their father’s boats. Stories like the time he and his brother hitched the boat trailer to their father’s car only to have it come loose a few miles down the road causing the trailer to crash through the rear window of Dad’s Jeep.

Oh, oh, then there was the time that Dad asked us to hold the boat while he parked the trailer, only to come back and find the boat 20 yards off the dock in the bay with one brother standing on the deck while the other brother, dangled off the side in the water (no names mentioned to protect the dumbest brother).

This is a picture an hour after the last incident. Note the look on John’s face. Not a happy face. Also check out those 80's short shorts! I'm sure some one will notice the word under John's derrière...put it together...

You may wonder then why John wants to buy a boat. Call it penance, or call it “I’ll show the old man,” or maybe it’s just time to get over it all and learn a new skill. When John told his brother he was thinking of buying a boat, his brother laughed and said to maybe leave well enough alone. Or maybe we’ll let Nancy skipper the boat and John can go along for the ride...a beer in one hand and a fishing pole in the other.

Anyway, one of the boats he’s been looking at is a Tahoe T16 shown below.

It’s a fun boat to pull a skier or tube and you can use it to fish. There’s salmon, steelhead trout, and John’s favorite, smallmouth bass in the Columbia River.

So, to buy or not to buy the floating home? That is most definitely the question. It’s one thing to look at a bunch of pictures and videos and another to walk around the house and see with your own eyes. Thus, we decided we had to go to Portland and see the place ourselves. But flying from Aruba to Portland is quite an expense and time commitment.

Thinking about this, we came to the conclusion that one of us is more deliberative than the other (as in someone who carefully thinks through a decision vs. someone who makes snap decisions) So, as John sat here in Aruba writing this blog post, Nancy was on a flight to Portland to meet with the realtor.

While she was away John looked at boats, jet skis and kayaks---and while he wanted a pizza and a six pack of beer, he was good.

Nancy’s visit went really well. Susy, the realtor showed her around the house and then Nancy did a FaceTime with John and walked him around the house. We both liked the house, but there were many things that would need to be done to bring it up-to-date.

However, it turned out that some extenuating circumstances came up and we decided to put off buying a floating home for awhile. John had to bookmark all the boat, jet ski, and kayak webpages for when we decide it’s the right time to buy.

So until then, stay cool and safe.

John and the Deliberative One