I finally went and did it. I ticked something off of my bucket list. I took a ride in a submarine in Aruba. An actual submarine that took us to a maximum depth of 135 feet below sea level. It was amazing. In addition to the natural reef, the company who owns the submarines has actually sunk three vessels into the water for our viewing pleasure. Two of the crafts were wooden and the third was metal. It was interesting to see how the ships were actually becoming the bases for new coral reefs. Wood vessels are actually very good materials for new coral reef formations. Coral can latch on to the ship in a matter of a few years. When a metal ship goes down, not only does it hold its shape for much longer, the coral also takes longer to attach itself to the surfaces. Due to the depth, it wasn’t very colorful due to the natural light being filtered at such depths. David’s red shirt ended up looking grey as we traveled deeper.

In addition to the local marine life, we also got to see a lion fish which is actually an invasive species here in the Atlantic. They originally come from the Eastern Asian waters, but due to hurricanes and flooding in residential areas, some where released into the wild. Lion fish populations are normally controlled by predators eating them when they are small, thus they use the shotgun approach for their species survival like sea turtles. This means they lay many eggs with the knowledge that many will be eaten before they reach full maturity. Unfortunately, there are no species that naturally know to eat the baby lion fish in the Atlantic. Add that to the fact that lion fish eat pretty much anything they find and you can see how much trouble they are to the ecosystem. The only known predator in the area to eat lion fish are humans. In case anyone gets nervous about that, lion fish are venomous, not poisonous. They inject venom through the spines on their fins rather than poisoning something upon being swallowed. Once the spines are removed, the rest of the fish is perfectly fine to eat. Even better, the fish tastes good and is healthier than most common options on the menu like snapper, grouper, or mahi-mahi.

David was pretty exited to be a part of the 1% of the human population to ever dive in a real submarine, but I’m pretty sure I’m the first drop bear to go in a submarine.