(Cruise Day #4) Scuba in Aruba

Bill's parents have been taking classes here in town for their Scuba certification for a couple of weeks now and worked it out that they could do one of their open water dives in Aruba! Bill and I and Alex decided to join them for a day under the sea. Dani and Ron were kind enough to hang with Sawyer all day so that we could go! Thanks guys!!

We piled into a van and headed to a dive place called 'Aqua Windies' that was run by a Dutch family.

There were tons of these iguanas just zipping along all over the place! There were bright greens ones and then some blue ones too! Crazy!

After a forty five minute instructional video on hand signals, checking your levels, equalizing pressure in your ears and not touching the coral....we were 'ready'....the whole thought of throwing a baby in the water and telling them to swim, felt very familiar....

So, for those of you who have never had the opportunity to scuba dive, let me tell you: the tanks are SO heavy! Good Lord! I was bent over like the hunch back while trying to make it from the parking lot, down the bridge and into the water!

Once we got into the water, Bill's parents and the rest of their 'experienced' group took off right away. Show offs. Then Bill and I and Alex stayed behind with this guy. He had a Dutch name that sounded something like Shven? or Shoorn? and I have no idea how to spell it. He was totally the kind of guy you would expect to work at a scuba place on a tropical island. Tall, tanned with bleach blond dreads. He was so patient with us as we learned how to decompress and fill our masks and clear them.

We eventually got the hang of it!

Although Bill and I both had horrible times with our ears not popping! Obviously as you went down further and further, the pressure would make your ears feel tight and you'd plug your nose and pop them. Except for some reason, my left one never did quite get there and it just felt like I had a Charlie Horse in my ear.....

Steve had rented this underwater camera and got some great pictures of all the sea life that we saw! This is a Tiger fish and is extremely dangerous~get bitten by one of these and your off to the hospital. Apparently they are taking over the water in Aruba, where they're not supposed to be. The general consensus in Aruba is, if you see one, kill it. They are actually having competitions put on for who can kill the most. Shoorn had a very large knife strapped to his leg for occasions such as this, and tried to kill it, but it got away....

Kathy was making fun of us because you could tell that we were newbies in the water by how much of the time the three of us were just floating around upright instead of leisurely swiming horizontally :)

This eel was the creepiest thing ever!!! It totally looked like it was going to lunge out and eat your face off!

Trying to get together for a picture was pretty comical.....getting everyone down at the bottom at the same time and looking the same direction and not floating up was nearly impossible...

This was as good as we got!

Scuba Diving was exhausting and exhilarating and one heck of a way to see Aruba!