April 8, 2013 Panama Canal Cruise; Day 4 Aruba- Happy 2nd Anniversary!

Can you believe it?  Two Years already!  Wow!

Fernando, our steward, put this up

Brett and I woke up in Aruba for our anniversary.  The Island Princess docked in the port of Oranjestad and we were off the ship an hour later.  I had heard great things about Aruba especially from my sister, Tara, who vacations there frequently.  Unfortunately, we wouldn't have time to explore the city of Oranjestad because the ship was only there for 5 hours and we had an excursion to go snorkeling that would take about 4. hours.  That's okay, because we had a great time with our excursion.

Definitely Dutch influence

We boarded a catamaran boat that took us along the coast to a very nice coral reef.  When I jumped in, I was thinking the water would be bath temperature like Belize, but I was a little mistaken and may have hyperventilated.  If you give me 5 minutes though, I'll warm up and be fine.  Brett makes fun of me because I always do this...the ocean is scary, okay!  The water was about 4-12 ft deep, depending on where you went.  It was very relaxing and quite enjoyable. While snorkeling there were lots of fish, eels, sea urchins, and coral.  We had some crackers and it was funny to see the fish get all crazy and then disappear.  After a half hour, they called us back to the boat and we headed to our second stop.

The second stop was the Antilla Shipwreck.  Now Aruba was originally founded by the Dutch and during World War II in the early 1940's, the Dutch did not want the Germans to find this cargo ship, the Antilla.  So what did the Dutch do, they sunk it in 40 ft deep water.  Years later, the Antilla has become a popular snorkeling site in the Caribbean Sea.  I must admit that snorkeling in 40 ft deep water with some crazy waves was a little scary.  It was hard to see the ship because the waves made the water murky.  At one point I noticed there were bubbles floating from the ship and I was hoping the ship wasn't going to blow or that some shark was coming to eat me.  In the end, it was some scuba divers.  Ha!  After 20 minutes, Brett and I thought we had seen enough and headed back to the boat.

(We took pictures with the water camera, but I don't have digital copies to share...sorry)

The Island Princess

Before leaving port, I snapped this shot of Oranjestad, Aruba

That night, Brett and I had a wonderful 5 course dinner to celebrate.  Our waiter even sang "Happy Anniversary" to us which was quite enjoyable.  Now, I just want to note that I deserve to be "wife of the year" because I let Brett watch the NCAA Championship game on our anniversary night.  We watched the game with the Movie Under the Stars screen, so Brett was a happy camper.  We even enjoyed a delicious mock-tail.

Happy Anniversary, my love!