" In little to no current, yellowtail snapper, angelfish and bluehead wrasse dart between star and brain corals, while hamlet and damselfish hang beneath purple gorgonians. Four-eye butterfly fish and beaugregory seek refuge near white-tipped fire coral.
A yellow frogfish, nearly indiscernible in a jungle of sponges, anemones and tunicates, waits patiently for alert photographers. Hundreds of white grunts school at the stern not far from the ship's propeller. Starting at the stern and heading toward midship, where the vessel is broken in two, divers follow a coral covered railing along a passageway that seamen traversed over 50 years ago.
A series of large vertical windows, blown out in the ship's flaming demise, provide wide openings for a peek inside the superstructure.
Stanchions, upright and tall, rise from the structure like soldiers at attention. Bollards that moored the ship are too thick with marine growth to hold lines now. Criss crossing cables, puffed up by coral and sponges, beckon to macro photographers who might spend an entire dive hanging over them.
Divers pause to examine the crow's nest that rises halfway to the surface, then fin down to the base of the keel where small alcoves enveloped by dark shadows house a variety of critters.
Divemasters who've descended on the wreck hundreds of times say they still discover new sights with each visit. As word spreads, more divers are Aruba bound to explore the old ghost ship that sank when it was almost new and while two countries were clashing on the brink of a world at war."
Read More courtesy of Red Sail Sports
