Sunken Treasure

Wednesday January 6th, 2021 started like most days here on this happy island with a walk along the boardwalk and the 🏖.  The morning was lightly planned with activities .  Most of which involved sitting on the beach reading and relaxing.  Several members  under the age of 40 thought getting a couple of little inflatable tubes to float in the water would be fun - so that happened.  

The real action of the day started around 1 PM when we went on a snorkeling 🤿 tour with 2 stops and a little snack/lunch along the way.  We were lucky enough to do this with our friends Scott and Deb who also picked this week to visit Aruba with there family. We had a nice EP crew for this adventure.

Our first snorkel site was over the SS Antilla, a German freighter that was scuttled by her captain to prevent the Dutch navy that patrolled Aruba from taking it on May 20,1940.  The boiler room was flooded with cold water.  This led to a huge explosion 💥 that sunk the ship. Wikipedia say that a Dutch naval vessel used her 35 mm gun to send her to the bottom.   The bottom of the ship sits around 40-60 ft of water the top edges are as shallow as 12 feet.  You can scuba the site but we snorkeled from above.

Along the length of the SS Antilla 

Diving down looking at the bow.  Amazing and haunting.  Need to work on my free diving breath holding in 2021.

Looking back at the deck of the SS Antilla

Some bigger fish out by the wreck in deep waters.  Several scuba divers exploring the wreck as well.

I have more pictures but they are all basically the same and I won’t bore you.  From the Antilles it was up the coast to a reef.  We anchored in about 12 ft of water.  The visibility was amazing.  Prepare for some snorkeling 🤿 photos whether you want them or not.

Pretty fish 

More pretty fish

Black and Yellow Angel Fish

Powder Brown Tang... I think

Blue Tang

I was the last one back on the boat from a 🤿.  This is one of my life goals is to alway being the last one back on the boat or the bus from an adventure.

After that it was snacks and drinks for those who wanted them.  There was also a rope swing off the boat which I killed and made me feel a little less old in relation to the belly flop demonstration from the day before.  Unfortunately, no video exists of me rope swinging because of this, everyone in our party is grounded.

Enjoying the ride

The EP crew

The coast of Aruba.

After snorkel we enjoyed 🍻 on the beach discussing the short comings of Man United and Liverpool while watching the semifinal of the Carbaro Cup⚽️  All of us working on maintaining our social distance.  A quick dinner and bed.  Tomorrow we will see what the 🏌️‍♀️ is like in Aruba.

It was nice to relax and be away from the madness for awhile.