day 3

Here we go,

After being gently rocked to sleep we awoke to Aruba. After a quick breakfast, I gathered my gear for my first dive of this trip. A small bus met us at the dock, and took the five divers on board to a boat. A short trip out and we were at the spot of an old wreck. As a diver I gear up pretty quick, following my routine, I have few wasted movements, which left me time to watch the others get ready. I have found that you can tell alot about a diver just by watching them get their stuff together. Good divers tend to be ready without rushing, where slower divers tend to fiddle and fuss. So it was on this trip, as I watched some guy put all his equipment together backwards. I slowly moved away from him before the dive master assigned partners. I was teemed with a German who was ready to go when I was. After the dive master sorted out the gorby's gear he teamed him with John an American, and we all got wet. The dive was to a wreck lying on it's side in 50 feet of water, but with only 30 ft. visibility, I never saw the whole boat in one picture. We were not allowed to enter as the steel hull was ready to collapse, and even our bubbles could have caused it to fail. So we swam the parameter and I got only a few shots, even with the strobe flash the turbid of the water made the photos dark. The water was 81degrees, so it was really nice just to get wet, and shake off any gitters. The second dive was just a mile from the first, and was an even older wreck that had broken into 5 distinct parts. Navigation was the key here, using compass readings to find all 5 parts. A, UXB, bomb on the sea floor marked one site while many fish and a lobster guarded the other spots, also the barracuda we cruising these spots, as they do on most ship wrecks that I have dove on. At about 20ft. the light was ok but again the turbid made it a somewhat murky dive, with visibility at about 30 ft. We got back to our ship at about 1 pm. and after stashing my dive gear in the shower of our room, it was lunch on board then off to Aruba for shopping. I tend to look more than buy, but I hooked up with several of our group and just walked around the area. I found one shop with masks made by natives, they boil the gum from a tree and add vegetable coloring to the mix, they then chew this sap to make it stretchy and place to over a wooden mask. The mask is carved by the natives at the direction of the medicine man who it's said gets high to talk to the spirits, who dictate which mask to carve. By adding different colored layers of processed sap they make really different masks. I listened to a video of this story in the store, and thought the masks would cost a lot but starting at 17usd., well even I could afford one. This was valentines day so I gave it to my true love. Back on the ship we all got together for another extravagant meal, with cigars and coffee afterwards. Then it was off to the theater for some on-board entertainment. Some of the group gave me a white shirt, you know the type with the funny collar and black buttons for my tux, as I was team leader for this cruise, thank you, it was a most kindly thing to do. I was able to go to sleep with a big smile that night, part from a great day, part from the anticipation of another port tomorrow..........A&K