Aruba Trip report

[highlandfarmwv]

Just got back from a great dive vacation in Aruba. Three of us dived for a week with Clive at "Dive Aruba", and enjoyed every minute of it. He allows you to dive you computer, and does not rush you. He takes a max of 7. He does wrecks, drift dives and reef dives--nice and varied. The visibility was a little silted, but still about 60 feet. We saw great animal life; lots of large hard and soft corals. I was lucky enough to get videos of a swimming eagle ray, huge green moray, southern stingray and myriads of fish.

One day and one night we dived with SE Aruba (Clive's day off) , and were disappointed. For example, after telling us we were not to leave the group, the divemaster left us for 20 minutes. Our total time in the water was 38 minutes, and half of that was waiting for her to come back and get our group of 6. (She headed out with two guys only, and I guess didn't look back for lights)

 

[PinkTank]

I dove for two weeks in Aruba two years ago and didn't care for SEaruba myself. Before I went I couldn't decide between them and Pelican dive company so I decided to dive the first week with Pelican and the second week w SE Aruba, sort of like having two vacations. I loved my experience with Pelican...not crowded, big boat, great staff. Compared to Pelican, SE Aruba was more laid back and nonchalant. The boat was narrower, shorter and thus felt more crowded. When I found a station for myself both tanks were 2/3 full and the young blond gal acted snotty when I asked about it. I don't use much air anyway, but I just thought it odd. They allowed me to cancel the rest of my package and I happily finished the week diving with Pelican.

 

[Mountain Dog]

Glad you had a great time in Auruba, but I'm sorry to hear about your experience with SEaruba. Our experience with them was just the opposite. We had a great time. But it might have had to do with the time of the year. We were there the first week of December, which is the end of the "off" season down there. On two of our five days of diving, LadyDog and I had the boat to ourselves. One day there was one other diver. The other two days had a total of four on the boat. The blonde was working in the shop that week, and never went out on the boat. We mostly went with Steve as our divemaster, and he did a good job.

Congrats on the videos. Sounds cool. Was the moray on "The Fingers" reef? That's where we saw a huge one. We also had a couple of turtles swim with us for a while on the same reef.

Mountain Dog

 

[PePaw]

Thanks for the great report. Hitting Aruba in September and will dive with Clive !

 

[highlandfarmwv]

Saw green Morays at Tugboat, Antilla, Debbie II and the patch reef around it, and Skalahein.
Spotted eels in several places, chain eel at Tugboat, golden eel on Jane Sea.
Finger reef was nice. Least favorite is Sonesta Airplanes. (the planes haven't been down long enough to be lush and the reef is less lush there) All the other reefs were very nice. Couldn't believe the color on Antilla, or the size of the gorgonians and hard corals all along the reef south of Sonesta! As popul;ated as Aruba is, I thought the reef would suffer. The water was only 79 degrees. I have heard it is from upwelling with the offshsore wind. Perhaps that is why the reef is healthy. It would have to heat up alot to bleach from being too warm.

 

[SusanWH20]

Just came back from Aruba and totally agree about the Antilla. We dove it twice and probably could have done it a couple more times. It's massive and there was a lot to explore.

We dove with SE Aruba and had a fine time. Got our wreck specialty and really felt good about the experience. We did 4 straight days and some were busier than others (so I can understand the complaint about crowding). Still, we never felt neglected. Plus, the DM always let us know which tanks were the most full since we'd get there early. (I can be an air hog early in the week so I appreciated it).

One thing I did want to mention was that on our way back one day, we had to stop and rescue two divers from Red Sail. Apparently, they got separated from their group and got lost diving the reef near Debbie II. There were 3 divers but one was making a long surface swim to the Red Sail boat. The other two were just out there bobbing on the water so they were more than happy to climb aboard and get a lift back to their boat. What puzzled me was that Red Sail had a small raft attached to their boat that could have easily picked up the divers. I know I certainly would have been unnerved with my dive operator in that situation.