We had a relaxing day today. A short little swim at the beach where we encountered the large bait ball a few days ago. The pelicans were still there, maybe even more! The bait ball was still there, but seemed smaller than before, maybe my imagination.

We swam further north that we had the other day, and encountered a really cool environment. It was quite a bit different than anything we’d seen on Aruba. It seemed more rugged, less spoiled. I think it’s because there is really no easy beach access. We had to swim quite a ways to get to it from our entry point.

We saw some neat fish here. There was another HUGE school of Caribbean reef squid, probably the largest we’ve seen yet. I think we’ve seen more squid this trip than all the others combined.

There was a strange pink/red parrotfish which we can’t find in our books. She had blue lips, and blue markings over a mostly pink body. She was not shy and was completely unconcerned about us diving around her trying to get a good photo. I’m sure it’s not a mature fish yet, so she’s going to be even more colorful when full grown.

There was a huge school of needlefish, which seemed to be taking the place of the palomettos of the other day. That is, they circled the bait ball, keeping it tight together, while diving in for a snack whenever they wanted. These fish swim within a couple of inches of the top of the ocean, hardly ever going deeper than a foot. Cool looking fish, and there were some quite large ones here too.

There were lots of schools of grunts, and snapper just drifting on the waves. We saw a couple of big barjacks, and Pam saw a couple larger fish, perhaps a Cero. They move so fast it’s almost impossible to get a picture unless you have your camera on, and pointed in their direction.

There were lots and lots of lobster. Must have been a party, because we could have fed half of Aruba with all the lobster there! Seemed every rock that had a shelf under it had a couple lobster hiding under it.

Here is a short movie of the pelicans diving into the bait ball. The seagulls land on their heads, and sometimes reach inside the pelican’s pouch, looking for tidbits! It’s pretty funny to see, actually.