The ocean is back to being it’s lovely calm self here in Aruba… and we’re glad! The crazy high waves we’ve seen has made snorkeling less than stellar. But today (Thursday) all I can say is wow! We tried Boca Catalina first, it’s north of the visible wreck, but south of Arashi. It has lots of palapas to give you shade, and to store your gear while you head in. It has a nice sandy entrance, so it’s easy to get in the ocean.

The first ten feet or so there are lots of fish, but there is some “junk” that has been stirred up by the storms. If you look at the doctorfish picture you can see what I mean. But once you got out past that, it was the old clear Caribbean sea we’ve been missing! The water was warm, and everywhere we looked there were tons of fish.

We saw a pair of scrawled filefish here, that were quite big, the larger was close to two feet long. They were not afraid of me, and I dove quite close to them, without them scampering off. So I turned on the movie and dove down to catch a closer look, and try to get them to move, so we could see what they look like swimming. I’ve converted the movie, but for some reason, the conversion is rather poor compared to other movies we’ve done so far. Not sure why that is. Anyway, it’s interesting, but I apologize for the grainy quality (the original is not!).

Pam got hooked on the French Angelfish and took about 350 pictures of them! haha I only took about 150 of them… too funny. They are such a cool fish – quite large compared to lots of fish there, and they kind of stick out with their slow moving ways, and bright colors.

We saw a couple of triggerfish, but they are so shy, as soon as you point the camera at them, they take off. It’s tough to get a decent shot of them, but I managed to get a couple of ok ones.

We saw a couple of moray eels, a spotted moray and a green moray. Again, a shy type of fish, and they would quickly scamper under the nearest rock. We managed to get a couple good shots of the spotted moray.

Here is a short movie of the ubiquitous Sgt Major! These guys are probably the most curious, friendly fish in the Caribbean. They hang out with you in schools, and it seems everywhere you turn, there are a bunch of them! This one is especially for Mike!

In the afternoon, we took a drive to the Casibari rock formations. We were looking for the Alto Vista chapel, but found these instead! They are strange rock formations, that dot the island, and were somehow important to the Arawok Indians, the original inhabitants of Aruba.

You can see that the island is quite lush this year. In years past, the island has been somewhat dried out. But with Hurricane Tomas passing so close to the island, it has given them a lot more rain than usual. There are tons of flowering plants in the gardens around people’s homes, so you can tell it’s been an unusual year.

Then we headed over to Malmok Beach. It’s north of Boca Catalina, but still south of Arashi, surrounded by million dollar homes. All the beaches in Aruba are public, so this is usually a great snorkeling spot. The entrance to the water is a little tough, quite rocky, with only a very little sandy space. But once you get in! wow – the water was great, clear, and lots of fish. There were a number of snorkeling boats out, so you could tell people were happy to have the ocean back to normal!

We saw a bunch of French Angels, another triggerfish, and another moray. We drifted for quite a ways, and only came out as the sun was starting to set. On the way back in to shore, we spotted a peacock flounder, stuck on the side of a rock, very well camouflaged. All in all, a great swim.