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Aruba wreck dive

Aruba Wreck Dive: SS Antilla

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Aruba has several wreck dives that were intentionally sunk and others that suffered an attack.  We had snorkeled the SS Antilla Wreck and enjoyed the snorkel so much that we decided to come back with our dive gear.

The SS Antilla was 397 feet long, had a 55.4 foot beam, weighed 4,400 gross tons. She was built in 1939 by Finkenwarder at Hamburg and was powered by two steam turbines.

Aruba Wreck Dive

SS. Antilla before she sank

Although she was a brand new German vessel, the ship was sunk intentionally by her captain. She was an unarmed ship used by the Germans to supply their submarines during WW II.  She was nick-named the “Ghost Ship” by the allies who were never able to locate and attack the ship outside of neutral waters.

When Germany invaded Holland in May of 1940, the ship was moored
just off the shore of Aruba which is a Dutch territory. The local law enforcement immediately asked for her surrender but gave her captain a day to think about it. That night the Antilla was scuttled in order to prevent the ship’s capture. Her captain and crew were detained for the rest of the war in a prisoner war camp on the island of Bonaire.

The Ship now rests in 18-22 meters of water off the south side of Aruba.
She is one of the largest wrecks in the Caribbean and rests intact on a
sand bottom making this one of the best wreck dives in the area.

Disclaimer:  Sorry for the funny color on the photos, we forgot the red filter and I could not photo shop it well.  But here you go…
Aruba wreck dive

SS Antilla Wreck in Aruba

Aruba wreck dive

SS Antilla Starboard Side

Timing is everything when you give this site as you don’t want to be there with all of the tourists from the charter boats.   There are a few windows during the day where the site is empty, but by the time we jumped in another dive boat and a small charter boat arrived.  Once in the water, you quickly come to the stern of the boat which is only in about 12 meters of water.

The majority of the ship is covered in marine life including giant tube sponges, and coral formations.

Aruba wreck dive

Beautiful coral on the SS Antilla

Aruba wreck dive

Tube coral on SS Antilla

We came across a couple of giant puffer fish and enjoyed following them around their home town.

Aruba wreck dive

Puffer making its home around the SS Antill

Aruba wreck dive

Another puffer hiding in the wreckage

Matt had camera duty so he captured me swimming around:

Aruba wreck dive

Me enjoying being back in the water.

Aruba wreck dive

Enjoying the bottom of the wreck

Aruba wreck dive

SS. Antilla wreck

 

Dive Buoyant

Buoyancy An Art or Skill?

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Buoyancy is something you have to constantly practice and perfect while diving.  It is not something you learn once and then move on as there are so many different variables.  The water depth, tank weight, BCD, weights, and your breathing all impact your buoyancy.

Diver buoyancy

Photo Courtesy of Diving Frontiers

Matt has it mastered and can literally site Indian style in the water, gently moving up and down with each breath.  Sign of a skilled and controlled diver and flexible yogi.


My new BCD has helped tremendously.  The original BCD was a unisex BCD which did not fit me correctly.  The torso was too long and it sat below my hips and was overall just too big.  I sold it and bought a female Aqua Lung Pearl which fits much better and gives me far more control.

I am pretty flat (or neutral) while I am diving.  But I do tend to struggle when I want to stay in one place to take a photo, look at a critter, or wait for other divers.

Work needed to be done so I jumped at the chance when Eric on “Ad Astra“ offered to do buoyancy skills with a few of us.  Eric is a dive instructor and has over a dozen certifications (rescue, first aid, deep, technical, side mount, etc…) and is the perfect person to teach us new techniques.

Me diving.

Me, before I learned my new skills, pretty neutral.

Jane from “Cheetah II,” Daryl and Janet from “Maple” joined me at “Ad Astra’s” mooring where Eric had rigged a little skills course.  He put up a diagonal line creating a space that got smaller as the line met the sea bed on opposite side.

Eric had us practice fin kicks where you leave the tips of your fins on the floor and raise your body up with an inhale and down with an exhale.  After we “mastered” this exercise, he showed us different fin kicks.  Most people do the flutter kick which tends to kick up sand and can disturb the sea life so we were learning alternative kicks that are less disruptive to the animals.

Types of Kicks:
  • Flutter kick
  • Modified Flutter kick
  • Frog Kick
  • Helicopter turn

After displaying our new skills, we used the modified flutter kick to get under the line, then helicopter around and swim back under the line without touching the line or the ground.

Next, we used the same kick to swim barely over the line, then we headed straight down (perpendicular to the ground, head first), then swam under the line belly up (tank closest to the ground).  Of course, I looked at him in disbelief when he demonstrated it and indicated I might not be able to do it, but to my surprise, I killed it!

The next skill I had heard about and swore I would never do – but here I am preparing to do it in front of 5 other people.  You swim slowly, just above the floor (18″), up to a spoon that has been buried in the sand (the top part of the spoon showing).  As you slowly approach the spoon, you gently nudge it with your regulator, then slowly and calmly remove your regulator, grab the spoon with your mouth, look at Eric, and then replace your regulator.  I am not sure what the spoon’s problem was but it kept evading my mouth or jumping out of my mouth- it was comedic for everyone but me. Goin in, miss, goin in again, miss, spoon flops on sand – try the entire move again.  Eventually, I got it, but man it was irritating.

For the last skill we slowly swam up to the mooring, 18″ off the floor, hovered at the mooring for 5 seconds.  We then used our breath to raise up over the mooring then headed upside down, holding for 5 count (basically doing a “U” around the mooring.

Mooring Block

Mooring Block – Not Eric’s, but similar.

When we came up to the surface, we were all surprised to learn that we had been down for 90 minutes!  It was an incredibly educational and useful session that we are all very grateful to have received.  It certainly should be included in the basic Open Water or at least in Advanced training – which it is not.

None the less I feel much more equipped to handle my buoyancy and look forward to putting my new skills to work while diving.

Matt upside down

Matt pretending to be a trunk fish – upside down.


Salt Pier dive

Me at the Salt Pier.

Aruba or Bust

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Even though Harvey and Irma both threatened to change our friend’s travel plans, Matt and I were determined to head toward Aruba.  After our massive provisioning run we were ready to head to Santa Cruz Bay which is the closest bay to Aruba.  This will shave 25 miles off our trip to Aruba.  Our thoughts were to sail to Santa Cruz Bay and then get up early the next day and sail to Aruba (which is about 50 miles).  We said “good-bye” to our Curacao friends, pulled up anchor and headed out.  It was a beautiful day providing a nice trade wind – perfect for a spinnaker sail.  Matt pulled out Betty, our smaller spinnaker sail and off we went.  We enjoyed an absolutely spectacular sail day – which we had not had since we arrived to Curacao almost 3 months ago!


We arrived at Santa Cruz Bay a little over 3 hours later and there were no other boats around nice.  This is where Captain Good Life has his shop and rents out canoes and kayaks to those who want to visit the Blue Room and Mushroom Forrest.  He also provides guided tours on his boat if you are interested.  It took us a few times to hook the anchor as the ground is very hard with patches of coral.  Once we hooked, we jumped in checked the holding, and snorkeled a bit.

As we were making dinner, I started texting with Sharon, our friend who was to meet us in a few days in Aruba.  Their original flight was out of Houston which was rerouted a week ago to Orlando due to Hurricane Harvey.  Then on Friday (4 days prior to their trip), the airline cancelled their flight.   They were able to reschedule their trip to Aruba for October.  So, we had a decision to make.  Do we stay in Curacao (where we have already spent 2 months), head to Aruba (where it tends to be pricey), or go back to Bonaire?  It did not take long to decide as we both wanted to go back to Bonaire.  The beautiful water, upcoming regatta, and idea of more dive adventures was too alluring for us.  So, instead of getting up early to head to Aruba, we got up early to head to Bonaire which is a beat into the wind and waves.


The alarm went off at 445am, anchor was up by 5am, and we were out of the bay by 515am.  Good start!  We were actually able to raise the sails to one reef with the thought we could shake it out if the winds behaved.  We managed to hold our course, with the sails for about the first 4 hours.  However, several rain storms had a different idea – they kept pushing us off course, further and further North.  When we were -7 VMG and wet from the rain, we decided to drop the sails and motor to course – directly into the wind and waves.  It was not our best day, but also not the worst.  We encountered several more storms that kept the boat wet, rocky and rolly.

Pretty purple sky as we left in the wee hours of the morning

Since we just provisioned, our fridge and freezer are full, and I mean FULL!  But Matt could not resist putting the fishing lines out.  He justified it by not putting out the teasers – (don’t worry that logic did not make sense to me either).  After about 8 hours (2 hours to go), of nothing, we noticed a huge flock of birds circling around movement in the water.  Fish!  We headed in that direction and low and behold, one line went “zing” and then nothing – no pulling or bending of the pole.  Hmmm, As Matt reeled it in, we realized we did have fish on, but it was a little fish.  Even though it was a Mahi, Matt’s favorite, we set her free to grow up big and strong.

Too tiny to keep so we let her go

We got one more bit on the hook, but it was not meant to be.  As we were pulling up to the mooring field, where we were hopeful to find a mooring, we were greeted with a fabulous welcome party.  Manuel, Nadja (and a new friend Sean) from Manado were in their dinghy to help us secure to a mooring, then Thea (from Kattimi) came over in her kayak, Cindy (from tranquility) came by in her SUP, and Susan (from Nomad) swam by while doing her laps.  Of course some of these peeps were just out enjoying a nice calm afternoon – but they ended up swinging by to welcome us back – good to be Sugar Shack!

We tried to clear in to customs and immigration, but they closed early (it was Saturday after all), so we stopped by Illy Coffee for a treat and wifi.  I have to admit that it was really tasty ice cream, but I am partial to Gio’s.  Afterward, we stopped by Karel’s for happy hour (and more wifi) and then headed back.  Before the sun set, we had been invited to a birthday party the next day, another day out on Ad Astra and drinks with friends.

It’s hard to call “Bonaire” a “Bust” especially since we are so happy to be able to return to this beautiful island.