Aruba 2021
Boca Catalina
Day 3 of our vacation and it was time to head to Boca Catalina...again! Only "the other" unknown Boca. I was bound and determined to find the place I thought was Boca. I had looked it up on my website: I called it Boca, it was definitely different, but I needed to know where it really was and what the real name of it was so I could correct it on my website.
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We arrived and I immediately looked for a name....what do you know!!! It IS called Boca Catalina. Why do they have 2 beaches named with the same name? At least I wasn't going loco and I did have the name correct.
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Sakari and I headed into the water to snorkel. I was happy she was actually coming with me. But, we really wasn't seeing much. There were a lot of schools of fish. I swear I remember so much more last time. This would be the only picture I took there. Can you believe it? It just wasn't satisfying this time around.
Schools of fish are cool, but I want more. I need more. I'm very needy. We decided to pack up and go to the "other" Boca Catalina instead, which was right down the road.
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Sakari continued to tag along with me while snorkeling and I was happy. YES!!! So much more seen here for some reason.
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More smooth trunkfish to be found again. They are just everywhere and some were really really huge.
More French Angelfish which were really huge as well. I just love how their eyes turn and look at you. They watch us just as much as I watch them. They come pretty close too. These pictures are taken at different times and different fish as well.
A this is a juvenile French Angelfish which looks totally different than what the adults look like, which I find so cool.
A school of blue tang surgeon fish
We noticed daddy was making his way in too. He hated that when he snorkeled with us that he didn't have an actual snorkel and only a mask. It really does take away from the moment when you have to come up for air every so often.
More Glassy Sweepers
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She may have become this shy little teenager these days, but she is not camera shy for just us...well at least not while in the water. She's always doing crazy things for me to take her picture.
Then I managed to sneak up on this pelican on the rocks. I would get closer and closer to him until he noticed me but yet he didn't take off.
It became a game of trying to get a good over under picture while he sat up there. I have to say, I didn't do too bad...about 20 pictures later. LOL It's just so hard to do with the water moving so much and I didn't have my wide lens with me at the moment. Well I did, but it would require me to go back and get it out of my bag. I knew by then he would have left the premises...so I was forced to work with what I had.
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We found a Squirrel fish hiding under the rocks like they always do but what really caught our eye was ANOTHER HIGH HAT!! WOW, that was unique to find another...that makes 2 days in a row and Sakari was so excited to see it. Now that you know what it is from the day before, I bet you can spot it right?
And another a short distance away.
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Now this time I tried to take a picture of the little fish that was inside this coral. I tried and didn't get a good picture. It was so cute. Of course I didn't have the good camera for macro shots because Sakari always claims that one.
Now I'm not that sure what type of fish this is, but I think it might be some type of Yellowfin Sea Bream. But it was shaped like the fish I had seen the day before that I thought my be a Porgy. Who knows. It was rather large though and all alone.
We decided to head back in. It had been a good snorkeling day. We had seen a lot but first....I SPOTTED SOMETHING. Something on the rocks looked familiar. It was blending in with the rocks. Could it be??? Do you see it?
People, people, people....the NUMBER 1 reason you do not stand, step, sit, touch or whatever, on the rocks or coral is because you can break them, kill them and it takes years and years for them to grow. Some of the big corals you see only grow around 2 cm a year. It could take 10,000 years for a coral reef to form. But, if that's not enough to convince you that standing on the coral is bad, well maybe a deadly poisonous STONEFISH will convince you. These things blend right in with their rock surroundings and unless you have a keen eye, most people won't even notice them and think it's a rock. They have venomous spines that contain enough poison to kill a man if accidentally stepped on. The Stonefish secrete powerful neurotoxins from the base of their dorsal fin spine, which is extremely lethal to human beings. Do you understand? You could die if you accidentally stepped on one of these. People, do not step on the rocks! I cringe when I see people bouncing up and down on rocks unknown to what might be under there.
Ok, rant over with. I'm just trying to save a life here...and the coral reefs.
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Successful snorkeling mission accomplished. It was time to go now.
Here's a little video I did of our snorkeling at Boca again today.