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Baby Beach Reef |
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Reviewer |
Site Condition |
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| Name: | Elgin Z. | Entry: | 
5.00
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| Email: | Click Here | Bottom: | 
4.00
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| City: | Oranjestad | Reef: | 
3.00
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| State: | Animal: |
5.00
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| Country: | Aruba | Plant: |
3.00
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| Diving: | 3 years | Facilities: |
4.00
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| Dives: | 250 | Solitude: |
3.00
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| Roads: |
5.00
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Evaluation |
*Average: |
3.99 |
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| I recommend you hire a guide if you've never done this dive before. The reason for this is that you might not find the reef if you go without one and more importantly, the exit is difficult if you don't know where exactly to exit. There's a dive shop near Baby Beach called JADS; there you can hire a guide. Here I'll give the same directions one of the guide's at JADS gave to my buddy and I before our first dive here without a guide: Swim out of the Baby Beach cove through either the small or the large channel, heading south; this swim out is exhausting as the waves push you back into the bay. When the depth is about 20 feet you should descend. There is not much to see in this area as it was devastated by storms. Now head further south and you'll find a small drop off; at the lowest point of the drop off the depth will be about 45/50 feet. Now you should swim heading west. There usually is a strong current down there, but luckily the current usually goes from east to west. At your left you should be seeing a sandy plane; at your right mostly Slimy Sea Plume Gorgonians and in the distance large Boulder Star Corals. In this area you should start searching for Southern Stingrays hiding in the sand. After a while swimming west you'll end up at something that looks like a mountain made of mostly Lobed Star Corals and some Boulder Brain Corals. This is the best part of the dive. In the late afternoon there are lots of fish here, including schools of Squirrelfish, Goatfish, Smooth Trunkfish, Blue Striped Grunts and Horse Eye Jacks. You'll also notice a curious pair of cables going over the reef. A short distance past these cables, there is a 10 feet tall metal cross; sometimes there's a Green Moray Eel in the base of the cross. When it's time to leave, just swim back (against the current!) to the cables and follow them over the reef and all the way to shore. The exit is over slippery rocks, but fairly easy if you exit where the cables come out of the water. I think you'll agree that this is a pretty nice dive. Anyway it's a sure bet that you'll get to see a few Southern Stingrays. Eagle Rays, Turtle's, huge Great Barracudas and Nurse Sharks also make impromptu appearances here. | |||
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Enjoyment Level |
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| Snorkel: |
3.00
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| Beginner: |
5.00
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| Intermediate: |
5.00
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| Advanced: |
5.00
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| Night diving: |
5.00
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Seasonal Information |
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| Season: | Summer | ||
| Year: | 2006 | ||
| Visibility: |
4.00 |
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| Current: |
3.00
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| Surf: |
3.00 |
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