"Two tours 2005" Aruba Travelogue by grandmaR

California Lighthouse

Today, Bob is finally going to go off on an excursion without me. I'm going snorkeling on the Wreck of the Antilla, and he is doing the Town and Country tour. He was under strict instructions to take pictures of the California lighthouse (named after a ship that sank there), which he did,

Tour bus at the Natural bridge

and he also saw the Natural Bridge one part of which has fallen down.

Mill wheels

The tour also visited the Bushirbana Gold Mill ruins,

Big Rocks

and the Casibari Rock Formation which is sort of similar the Baths at Virgin Gorda. He only took 28 pictures, but the ones he took were good.

He got off the boat ahead of me, and since I was going snorkeling, I wanted a towel. Instead of the towels being at the gangway on deck 3 as they have been at all the previous stops, just the water (for purchase) was there and the towels were up on deck 5. So I had to get the elevator back up and then I couldn't get one down, as they were all full already by the time they got to 5.

Pelican II coming into the dock

They told us to assemble out on the dock, and then brought us inside and had us sign a hold harmless, and then eventually an old catamaran named Pelican II with ragged sails came in on the other side of the pier from the Crown. They had benches on two sides and in the middle, a hard bimini, and two marine heads, one of which didn't work. The captain didn't seem to have any instruments at all - no compass, no wind speed indicator. All he had was the engine RPMs.

The captain was named Jost - a very sunburned Nordic type, and he had two crew - a white boy named Ian with one earring, and a black boy whose name I couldn't understand. There were only 14 of us and they usually take at least 20. We motor sailed out to the lighthouse (I think we are in one of Bob's pictures). Fortunately I listened to Bob and had put on my bathing suit because there was no place to change here.

I didn't take the digital camera, but I did take the film camera and the dive camera. I finished up the rolls in both of them. I put on my new dive skin, and got out my mask and snorkel. They gave us fins, and snorkeling vests and everyone else got masks and snorkels too. No one else had thought to buy or bring an underwater cameras.

They also told us about the wreck. Apparently it was a new German ship at the beginning of WWII and was captured when hostilities started -- the German captain was afraid they'd use the ship against Germany and did not want to surrender it so he dropped the crew off (had them swim to shore) and heated up the boilers as hot as they would go and then let seawater into the ship. The explosion that resulted broke the ship apart and sank it.

There was quite a lot of wind, and some current at the site. We picked up a mooring (of which there were 3), and they explained that the dive boat next to us was tied to the wreck (which it was). They said swim up current toward the bow of the ship, and then drift back, being careful not to let yourself get around on the stern side of the boats because you might not be able to swim back. One of the ladies had not snorkeled before.

Sergeant Majors around wreck

So I finned up to the end of the wreck and then came back on the other side. There were schools of sergeant majors, and some coral on the upcurrent side of the ship. I did this twice, and then was out of film, so I handed the camera up and went out and did the whole thing again. The divers were down on the bottom - maybe 30 feet. The ship was broken into two pieces and they were between the pieces so I swam through their bubbles. About 10 40, they got us all aboard again. By this time two other catamarans and two other schooners or that type ship were there, and they wanted our moorings. Our trivia partners were on the MiDushi.

On the way back we saw the SubSeeker submarine or glass bottom boat type boat, and also saw the people on the Rhino Riders (a 2 person inflatable motor boat one of which had three people including a young child). Also we saw a motor boat pulling two long pontoon type things with 5 or 6 people seated on each one.

After the snorkeling, they opened the 'bar' where they had all kinds of hard liquor and juices. I had a plain pineapple juice and then I went to the head and changed clothes. Some of the others got pretty drunk. The skipper said that he had a sunset cruise also, but I don't see why one would take an old boat with not much in the way of comfort of luxury out to see the sunset. We saw the sunset at dinner, and it wasn't particularly spectacular.

We came back to the dock and I walked back to the boat - I saw Bob coming back just ahead of me. We could have gone on out into town and shopped, but didn't.

Fish pate

For dinner Bob had a fruit compote and I had a fish pate with crackers and celery and carrots. I liked the carrots, but didn't care for the pate. I had the Wisconsin cheese soup, and then the prime rib for dinner. Bob had fried catfish. We were sitting with the old lady and old man from the previous night, and also a mother and daughter. For dessert I had the blueberry slump.

We didn't do too well on the trivia either - it was on films although Bob did get the answer to the person who got the most awards for costumes (Edith Head). We only got 12 right - we missed the name of one of the Gish sisters (got Lillian and missed Dorothy), couldn't remember the name of the guy who sang or played the piano "Play it again Sam", didn't know who did the Academy Awards in 1986 (I think that was the year - it was Jerry Lewis), didn't know the theme song from the Grapes of Wrath, etc.

This is our last stop - we are at sea from now until we arrive on November 5th - Saturday.

I can't find the writeup I did for our stay in Miami, but we flew out on following Thursday and the flight took us over Miami Beach