Snorkeling

We have a short stop in Aruba and was wondering whether I should take my snorkel gear. We will only be there from 7-12:30 so we don't have tons of time, but snorkeling is one of my favorite things. I have read snorkeling isn't so good on Aruba. I love to snorkel in St. John, Hawaii and the BVI! We snorkeled at the "best place" in Freeport several years ago and it was disappointing except for the Eagle Ray we saw. Anyway, comparisons on snorkeling between the Virgin Islands and Aruba from someone who has done both, please! If we don't snorkel we will visit Eagle Beach, if we do we will visit Boca Catalina. Thank you for your help!

I absolutely love snorkeling and if there's a place to snorkel...I'm going to do it no matter how good or bad or compared to other places.

We loved Boca Catalina when we were there (twice) in August.

HERE are my snorkeling pictures from that day. You can check it out and see what you think.

As always mitsugirly great info...thanx!

As always mitsugirly great info...thanx!

You're very welcome. :)

There's a WWII shipwreck you can snorkel, which is kind of cool. You'd need a boat to get out there. We saw tons of fish around the wreck, and also snorkeled one other spot (good-not-great snorkeling) that was just off Arashi Beach.

http://www.tropicalsnorkeling.com/snorkeling-the-antilla-wreck.html

I was there the day after Thanksgiving, and went with Captain Rene of Private Snorkeling Aruba (http://privatesnorkeling.com/)

Our Aruba stop (Nov.22, 2017) was longer (8 am 10 pm) so we had a superb 3 hour island tour with Sonny Binns. After the tour, we asked him to drop us at Boca Catalina where we snorkeled for several hours. It is the great place and my husband and our teenage daughter had a blast! A lot of fish there. Very little people, no fellows from the cruise ship at all, probably they all were at Eagle beach. Boca Catalina has no amenities, but nearby Arashi Beach (5 min. walk) has everything you need. We took public bus #10 back to the terminal, but the ride was almost an hour long.

There is a reef (or at least what is left of the reef) located off-shore at a spot between Boca Catalina and Arrashi Beaches (we prefer using Arashi as our entry point). You can get to either of those places by simply using the local bus (it is the 10A) but you must make sure you take the one that does go all the way to those beaches..because many of that #10 line do not go further than Palm Beach. I think the one that goes out to Boca and Arashi leaves the bus station (across the street from the port) about 25 after each hour (there is usually only one bus per hour). The bus costs about $2.10(US) one--way and the drivers do accept US currency.

If you do snorkel this reef you would definitely want to have fins...as the best spots are a few hundred yards off shore. This is the same spot used by many of the boat tours (where folks pay a lot more money) and you may find yourself avoiding hoards of snorkelers off a tour boat. The only other snorkel spot (reachable from shore) is at Baby Beach....but this is not easy to reach unless you have a rental car. Personally we do not like Baby Beach and have been underwhelmed when snorkeling that spot,,,but we mention it in the interest of full disclosure :).

Hank