FTV Drift Diving in Aruba

Drift Diving in Aruba

As we are heading to Key West where I am planning a scuba diving excursion, I am remembering our last day in Aruba when a small group of us went a a scuba diving tour. We went to two different reefs off the coast of the island. Both were very different, and we saw a huge variety of reef life on each dive. We left the ship and headed to the south side of the island, where there were not very many people swimming because it was very windy and the swells were rather big.

We did two drift dives by jumping off the back of the boat, without a line for us to follow down, We

jumped in and just drifted with the water current. After swimming around the reef for a while we were ready to be picked up by the boat so our dive master filled a float attached to a line and it shot to the surface for the boat to see that we needed a pick up! The dives lasted about 30 to 60 minutes depending on how much air you used. I was able to stay down longer because I did not consume that much air. Watch this video for a virtual drift dive of a coral reef

Moray Eel

My favorite part of the dive was seeing a few octopi. We followed one for a little bit, but then it started to spew ink so we thought it would be a good idea to leave it alone. Along with the octopi, we saw puffer fish, box fish, moray eels, many different sponges, and a few basket stars. This is not all we saw, but if I were to list of everything we would be here for a while.

Reef Octopus

It was an amazing two dives and I will never forget it. I can only hope that my dive in Florida is just as good, if not better.

Have you ever experienced a drift? this amazing kind of dive where you are transported by the currents and allowing you to feel that magical sense of ‘flying’ underwater, while making the dive cover a lot more distance than a standard dive, passing by big and small fishes, and literally flying over reefs! Currents are a continuous directed movement of water generated by forces on the water like wind, the Coriolis Effect and breaking waves. Other factors for the cause of currents is the temperature, salinity and tide of the water itself, but the greatest cause of a current is the tide, which is caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun. Learn more

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