Honeymoon in Curacao

[pake]

Hi,

My wife and I got married last spring in Scotland. Although we were wed abroad we still felt we needed to go on a honeymoon as well (nice excuse for going abroad again). It was a cold and rainy week in Finland when we finally decided where we'd go. Obviously the destination would be somewhere warm.

So, we thought about Bali but ended up in Curaçao. We spent a lovely 2,5 weeks there and got "a few" photos as well. Here's a few (and more can be found here: Curaçao (2015) ):

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EM543243 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
The first bigger lizard we saw in Curacao. It was hanging way above us in a tree.

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EM543344 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
This fellow let me come surprisingly near (~1 meter) and kindly posed for me.

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EM543261 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
I just love the colours here.

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EM543268 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Just like all the pictures above, this one was taken at our resort (Livingstone Jan Thiel Resort - which I'd definitely recommend for anyone).

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EM543359-EM543360 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
You can't go to Willemstad and NOT take a picture of these famous buildings, now can you? This one is a stitched panorama of two separate pictures.

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EM543380_sepia by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Willemstad

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EM543411_sepia by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Willemstad bus station (where we had to spend a lot of time since the buses didn't obey the timetables). I'm usually too shy to shoot strangers so I'm glad I had my 40-150mm with me...

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EM543525 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
This happy looking bird was shot at Curacao Sea Aquarium. No guns involved though.

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EM543563 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Curacao Sea Aquarium: The sea lion show.

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EM543595 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Curacao Sea Aquarium: A ~3 meter lemon shark.

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EM543640 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Curacao Sea Aquarium: Dolphin feeding after the show. Oly 40-150mm.

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P1040151 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
This one was shot with GM1 + 14mm f/2.5 and a DiCApac WP-S3 housing. I bought the housing just before the trip and I gotta admit I got a bit disappointed. The touch screen works fine above the surface but once you put the camera in the water the touch screen becomes unusable. I was planning to use the "touch focus" feature but obviously couldn't. Also the visibility on the LCD was very poor which meant I was shooting pretty much blind. I also tried shooting with PL20/1.7 and O45/1.8. The 20mm was totally unusable since its focus was incapable of working underwater. The Oly 45mm was pretty ok but the problem was composing the shots since I could barely see anything from the camera screen. I guess my best underwater shots came with the 14mm lens.

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EM543693 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Boka Tabla. 2,5 second exposure with Haida Slim PRO II MC ND2.7 400x filter. I love this filter since it's cheapish yet very sharp.

continued...

 

[pake]

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EM543776 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
This one's my absolute favourite! We were climbing the highest "mountain" (Mount Christoffel) in Curacao and I had only PL20mm/1.7 and O40-150mm/2.8 with me. The first shots of these two were with the 20mm but luckily they didn't mind us filming them so I had the time to switch to the 40-150mm and got this picture.

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EM543945 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Mount Christoffel. These birds were brave enough to come and take a cookie crumbles from my wife's hand. Obviously this one was shot using the 40-150mm.

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EM544006 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
This gorgeous fella was caught posing high up a cactus tree after our climb to the mountain. I like this shot a lot but I think I would have preferred my 100-300mm for more reach. I'm sure it's the best picture of a wild prey I've ever taken.

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EM544014-EM544016 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
The swimming pool at our resort. Oly 12-40mm. And I just realized I should have cropped this to 16:9 or 16:10. Oh well...

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EM544059 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
The beach near our resort: Jan Thiel Beach. Pretty decent waters for snorkeling. And the water was sooooo warm. Loved it.

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xEM544157_sepia by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Willemstad again. I just had to snap a photo of that woman wearing those "warm looking" boots. It was over 30°C and we were sweating. I guess she wasn't...

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P1050009 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Jan Thiel Beach. This one was with the GM1 + underwater housing -combo.

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P1050063 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Getting back to our resort after the swim. Even though this photo taken with GM1 is a bit dramatic it's still nothing compared to what it looked like IRL.

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EM544207-2 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
E-M5 + P100-300mm. After I had taken a few of these heron shots I looked at the pictures on my E-M5's screen and though all of them were shaky/blurry. I guess I was wrong... This one is cropped a lot.

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EM544356 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Once again the famous buildings in Willemstad. This shot was taken on a sail boat called Insulinde (www.insulinde.com).

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EM544374 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
After the sail boat trip we were heading back to our car and spotted this nice-looking Green Heron(?) under a bridge. I was fortunate enough to have the time to switch my 12-40mm to 100-300mm and grab this.

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EM544609 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Our resort - once again. Gotta love the colours they use to paint their houses in Curacao. Finns should pay attention... E-M5 + 12-40mm and hand held of course.

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EM544644 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Lizards, lizards, lizards... I know. I shot them a lot. But hey, they were everywhere! And they were beautiful. Well at least photogenic if not beautiful...

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EM544693 by Teemu Paukamainen, on Flickr
Our last evening. Decided to use the 40-150mm instead of the obvious landscape choice (12-40mm). I had previously taken enough shots with the wider lenses yet none of them looked as good as this one. Maybe I should use the 40-150mm more for landscape shots as well...

Hope you enjoyed these and in case you want some more: Curaçao (2015)

 

[myhl]

Congratulations on your wedding.
Great photos!
Thanks for sharing

 

[pake]

Congratulations on your wedding.
Great photos!
Thanks for sharing

Thank you.

 

[maritan]

Nice pictures! I think the bird in EM544374 is a Green Heron.

My takeaway from all this: I wish I could take 2.5 weeks of vacation and not be in the red for the rest of the year with my employer. Need to move to Europe just for the vacation.

 

[pake]

Nice pictures! I think the bird in EM544374 is a Green Heron.

My takeaway from all this: I wish I could take 2.5 weeks of vacation and not be in the red for the rest of the year with my employer. Need to move to Europe just for the vacation.

Thank you! I was surprised to learn recently that the vacation periods are pretty short in e.g. the US. I get 5 weeks off each year which allows nice, longer trips abroad.

 

[wjiang]

Fabulous set, I especially love the rich colours of the sunsets and of all the wildlife.

 

[Kalifornier]

Fantastic photos, and as others have said, the rich colors! Pity about those dolphins, though. The more I read about captive dolphins and how they end up in tourist traps like swimming with dolphins or marine parks doing silly tricks, the more heartbreaking it is.

 

[Hazza]

Stunning set of photos and amazing wildlife. You obviously had a great time, I hope you didn't neglect your wife

 

[pake]

Fantastic photos, and as others have said, the rich colors! Pity about those dolphins, though. The more I read about captive dolphins and how they end up in tourist traps like swimming with dolphins or marine parks doing silly tricks, the more heartbreaking it is.

Thanks for the kind words. And yes, even though those aquariums can be nice for the visitors I'm sure the animals would be better off in the wild. That's why I prefer places like Koala Hospital since they release the animals when they're healed but you still get to see those rare animals.

Stunning set of photos and amazing wildlife. You obviously had a great time, I hope you didn't neglect your wife

Thanks! Yes, she had some attention as well. We both love taking pictures so it makes things a lot easier when we're travelling.

 

[drd1135]

Thank you! I was surprised to learn recently that the vacation periods are pretty short in e.g. the US. I get 5 weeks off each year which allows nice, longer trips abroad.

American businesses try to discourage these decadent European practices, i.e, they lose money.

 

[BarefootPilgrim]

Teemu, these are fantastic! And it looks like you had a lot of tun, too. Congratulations to you and your bride!

 

[pake]

Teemu, these are fantastic! And it looks like you had a lot of tun, too. Congratulations to you and your bride!

Thanks. We sure did.

 

[Sniksekk]

Can I ask what hotel you where using during your vacation and your experiences with it?
Probably going there ourselves in july, showed GF the sunset picture and she said that it`s close to the hotel she wants to choose herself.

And great pictures! Did you go on any guided tours?

 

[pake]

Can I ask what hotel you where using during your vacation and your experiences with it?
Probably going there ourselves in july, showed GF the sunset picture and she said that it`s close to the hotel she wants to choose herself.

And great pictures! Did you go on any guided tours?

Thanks! We stayed here: Livingstone Jan Thiel Beach Resort and I'd definitely recommend it. The food was good, pool was warm and the apartment was huge. Can't really complain about anything there.

There is a supermarket (a smaller one but still big enough) closeby and it took perhaps 5 minutes to walk to the nearest beach from the resort. I guess the only negative thing that comes to mind is the location if you prefer to use public transport (buses to/from Willemstad went by once an hour - and they were always late). We also rented a car which helped a lot.

We prefer to "do things our way" so we didn't go on any guided tours. We drove across the island though and visited several places (Rum distillery, Cristoffel National Park, several beaches etc.) on our own. Our only "tour" was a sailboat trip (www.insulinde.com) which was nice.