Aruba 2015

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Tim Borski
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Aruba 2015

Post by Tim Borski »

A couple years ago my wife Jill sent an application to the Wheel of Fortune. It’s a game show with a woman named Vanna and some guy. She applies to everything from the Amazing race to Jeopardy, Cuttysark tall ship stuff and beyond and gets accepted…’no idea how she does it but we support/accept her in all her quirkiness. In the meanwhile we chase venomous snakes after dark and she leaves us alone.
Well, she did that wheel show and won some stuff. We had the choice between some lame-o ski trip to some lame-o state west of the big river and a trip to Aruba. The boys and I chose Aruba cuz we wouldn’t have to wear socks there. It was simple, straightforward thinking on our part. After that, we did a tiny bit of research to try and figure out what if anything would be interesting to pursue. It turned out to be a short list: Some Bonefish and other land based fish species a couple of endemic snakes, an invasive Boa and some turtles and lizards and stuff. It wasn’t much to look forward to but at least we wouldn’t have to buy socks.


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At some point I spoke to a guy that’d been there and found all three snake species. He told us what the habitat looked like and what time of day or night we should pursue.

We arrive in early Aug, look around a bit to get bearings on what we can expect in the next week and set up at a cool semi-little hotel called the something or other. After a nice quiet eve I wake my oldest (Josef) up at 6 and we sneak out to fish until 8A or so. We see Bonefish but none come to hand. It is encouraging nonetheless.
The day is spent snorkeling and stuff and around dinner time we go to look at habitats that may or may not have snakes. During a quick dinner we talk about the habitats we’ve seen and decide that two look pretty similar to what we’d been told beforehand. We have Jill and my youngest (Gus) drop us off with some headlamps at sunset and tell them to come back in a couple hours. They’ll see our lights in the dark…just beep the horn and we’ll come out to meet them. They speed off and I walk down a dirt/gravel road and begin looking for something I have no search image for. It is comfortable and breezy…no bugs at all. Josef is catching up after putting his gear together and says: “Dad, I’ve got one.” ME: “One what?” Him: “A Crote.” Me: “Um, really?” So I walk back to a place I’d just walk past and there it is. Crotalus unicolor. A couple quick pics, some congrats and we are on our way again.

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After that we split up but still stay within sight of each other. I find another uni on the crawl and tell Josef. He refuses to come over because he’s already seen one.

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It’s gotten dark and he wants to find one of the endemic Cat eye snakes but finds nothing beyond a couple invasive Boas. I walk over and pull the first one out of some picker bushes. It is just some sort of average looking “Red tail.” Josef spent some time with it but I took no pics. Soon we hear a horn blast and head to the road. The first night was a success in regard to crotes.

The next few days were spent the same way…fishing early and snorkeling lounging later. We went to different sites and found lots of critters of interest. One night while flipping rocks for geckos Josef said he saw a Camel spider and when I asked where, he said “on your arm.” Here’s a pic…it looks big but was only about 1/8” long. It still creeped me out.

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At another site one night we found several Cat eyes, Crotes and Boas.

Here’s a few pics.

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The days passed with stuff like this:

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And one night towards the end we found this cool little Gecko…it might’ve been my favorite find of the trip!

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After that we returned home to another sock-less place.

I’m happy we did it and really enjoyed the time but have a “been there done that” type of feeling about it. The endemics were pretty special to see but we came away with the feeling that they were only considered some of the most uncommon species in the world because of locality. They seem to be common where they live. We ended our trip with 9 Crotes, 15 or so Cat eyes and a dozen or so Boas (3 were dors.) Some of the Geckos, Anoles and other lizards were very attractive. The people were friendly, food was good and the fact that there’s lots of options for the non-reptile enthusiasts makes it a great option for families.

Tim
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John Martin
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Joined: June 9th, 2010, 10:57 pm
Location: North end of Lake Okeechobee, Florida

Re: Aruba 2015

Post by John Martin »

Haha, your wife sounds like a real hoot! And you are a lucky man for it! I like your writing style, and it sounds like you've passed on the humor genes to the kid :-). Good job on finding that much stuff in such a short time.
Matt Arnold
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Joined: August 14th, 2011, 6:26 pm
Location: North Alabama

Re: Aruba 2015

Post by Matt Arnold »

Enjoyed the post as always, Tim. I think when I go herping I need to bring less socks
Tamara D. McConnell
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Re: Aruba 2015

Post by Tamara D. McConnell »

Fun post! Looks like a great place. The little colorful gecko is gorgeous.
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dwakefield
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Re: Aruba 2015

Post by dwakefield »

Nice work, Tim! Going on vacation where there are Crotes is always a good thing :thumb:
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Tim Borski
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Re: Aruba 2015

Post by Tim Borski »

Yes, she's a "hoot."

Yes, less socks = more better.

Yes, the little skunk gecko was very handsome.

Yes, places with crotes always deliver the goods.

Tim
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