So we got back from the vacation we won to Aruba, last Tuesday, and we have been sharing one of our favorite tropical vacations with you. In case you have missed our prior postings read more here:
Part one – See how our flights went, with our first view of the island
Part two – Learn about the locals, driving, and our first tourist adventure
Part three – how did we win this? Check it out, and see how our first sailboat ride went…
Part four – come with us on a grocery shopping trip – with out coupons
Then also have a look at these amazing flip flops from Oscaroos as I just love them.
So Saturday was our day to Snorkel! We headed back over to the same place we went on the sunset cruise. We got there early to get set up with our only coupon deal of the trip. With the company we went sailing with, if you booked two or more events with them then we got to rent a $30 camera goggles for free! I thought I did pretty good. I wore it since poor Sarah was so nervous about just staying a float.
The plan was to sail out to two different sites. The first was at an old wood ship wreck. It was in about 10-15 feet of water. We had fun after we got over the nerves of swimming in the ocean. For me believe or not, but my big scare in life is sharks. I even checked shark attacks in the Aruba waters prior to our trip. Poor Sarah really never knew how to even swim. The first day we got off the plane we jumped into the ocean and I gave Sarah a crash course on swimming. The forward motion of swimming, especially with fins, helps keep you up. So we swam and swam the first day. By the time we got out in the water after a minute or so of very mild hyperventilating, and me holding her by the arm, pulling her forward swimming, she relaxed. We were able to swim around and checked out all of the sea life. Sea urchins, cuddle fish (type of squid), and tons of fish swimming around we had fun getting used to the water. One issue we had was that our goggles kept fogging up. The standard spit in them didn’t work, and one of the tourist with us noticed us trying to keep our goggles clear, offered to give us some drops he brought, once we got back to the boat.
So as we swam around I snapped pictures and video with my free rental of goggles. The sea life seemed so interested in us. They would swim so close, and I kept trying to reach out and grab dinner but never got any.
I am sure Dora, from Finding Nemo is swimming here some where…
After we headed back to the sailboat, we fixed our goggles with some drops a fellow tourist let us use. And we all sailed off to dive at Aruba’s famous German ship wreck of the MS Antilla. When Germany broke ties with the Netherlands that dislike spread to Aruba where the Antilla was anchored off the coast. It was a U-boat supply ship and since Aruba supplied a large portion of the fuel and oil for the war, Germany had interest in that region. When the countries broke ties, the Dutch Marines on the island gave the ship 24 hours to surrender. The captain sent all of the crew off and heated up the boilers for the engines and let loose cold sea water into the engine room and the hot boilers and the cold water exploded and sunk the ship in 8 mins.
Below are short videos I took with our Free goggle cam. There were thousands of little fish that came up and started swimming around us. George, our native dive guide who later we found out was 54 years old, could dive down 150 ft he said. In the videos you will see bubbles come up from far below. He made large and small bubbles and even a couple bubble rings from down by the sea floor. The sea was much more choppy further out. And the up and down and then the quick looking up and seeing where I was at was due to the current and trying to head the warnings of our guide to stay close to the boat. In one video you will see George up out of the water.
All tourist had to wear the life vest. When we got out we took a fun picture of the both of us.
On the way home we wanted to stop and get a milkshake. We couldn’t find anything open later in the night since most of the places that didn’t serve alcohol closed around 5 pm. So we swung by the ole’ McDonalds and ordered a milkshake. One starnge thing about the McDonalds and other American chains was that there were no tourist there, only islanders. So as we drove around to order, Sarah noticed this sign…
Yes a Chicken Mac. I should of ordered one, but it looks like two full patties of chicken breast in a normal Big Mac style meal. One thing about this is that the Big mac is basically one beef patty split in half because the meat is so thin. In the Chicken Mac it looks like two full chicken meat patties…
More Aruba vacation coming soon…