Aruba

[SkipperJohn]

OK folks, I've been to Aruba many times and am quite intimate with the island, but not as a diver. I've dove there no more than 5 times and each time with USA-the same few sites, Molmok, Antilla and Pedernalis reef. This year I'm looking at JADS primarily cause I hear so many good things about them and to get to see a few more sites. Can you recommend any sites as a "must see" that JADS would be hitting? I am OW certified and completed my AOW just haven't had the time to complete the last of my paper work to get the card. I am very much new to this game with only 27 dives to date (around a third of them in the North East US with currents and as little as 3 foot vis) I'm probably only doing 2 dives as my GF doesn't dive (heck I'm lucky she showers with her fear of water)

Thanks in advance for your feedback and help!

 

[maximan1614]

I'm in a VERY similar situation with only a couple more dives under my belt, AOW, and west coast vis/temps, however I've never been to Aruba. This will be my honeymoon and I will be diving solo(with JADS).

After researching, I find numerous recommendations for places to dive here but without a definitive "you have to dive this place" type of review.


Any help by experienced Aruba divers?

 

[jackplum]

They often go to Sponge Reef and the Sonesta airplanes as well as the Jane C.

Those are nice dives on the south shore and easy for newer divers. My daughter (16) finished her AOW with a night dive on the airplanes last winter.

Other dives of interest in the same area are Mangel Halto, a nice sloping reef with a fairly new tug boat wreck, and Harbor Reef and the pilot boat.

For a shore dive, I would highly recommend Pos Chiquito (Hole in the Wall), a great slope going from about 10m to 35m. Easy parking and a short walk. PM me for a map.

 

[craracer]

The following are sites we hit:

Masbango reef (small clusters of coral heads. 2 airplanes)

La Katil (pseudo wall dive)

Mangel Halto (small German boat recently sunk here. from there, a very shallow (6m deep) swim to a mice coral area)

Jane Sea wreck (decent wreck ~61m long. Easy breach)

California Reef (end of dive is fantastic with huge rock/coral formations. the DM and I dove this together with no other divers as this was a new location for them. basically, we were exploring new sites)

Antilla wreck. (huge 73m long wreck. safe haven for juvenile drums. Tons of life.

Blue Reef/Debbie II wreck. Debbie II is a small ~21m wreck, which is just ok. Nothing terribly exciting.

Morning Star Wreck. (deep dive 30m. Wooden boat).

Skalahein. (dive log got wet, so I can't read anything).

Fingers. (lots of large schools of fish. got in to a bait-ball. loads of fun)

Rocky Beach. (this was a night dive from the shore of a persons back yard (private property). Plenty of life, and took photos of a rarely seen eel)

Sponge Reef. (again, soaked dive log. the only thing I could read is that I wanted to dive this site again)

Harbor Reef. (loads of Social Feather dusters. tons of broken coral. not a great dive)

Renaissance Airplanes. (2 scuttled planes, which you can do light penetration on both. Not a great dive otherwise)

I dove one other memorable dive (not suggesting this site to you at all. just a jaunt down memory lane). It was just the DM and I diving, so I asked him if there was any place he would like to go to...somewhere that they didn't take other divers.

Turns out that there is a wreck, which has no name, and was rarely dove due to depths (41m). The captain had heard about it, and thought he knew were it was located, but had never dropped anyone off there. The captain took us to the site, and we found the wreck. Great dive, albeit a short one!

Here's a link to some of the photos I took:
Picasa Web Albums - Ben - Aruba 2010