After seeing evidence of the damage that Hurricane Ivan inflicted on the reefs and shores of Aruba in 2004, I had begun to wonder if the location where the cannons were found on the reef in the 1950s might have had more sand removed, making any remaining artifacts easier to see, like possibly exposed on the surface. Knowing that the waves would have most likely not have moved any heavy cannons, I had anticipated that this might be a opportunity to take a fresh look at that section of the reef.

At the Oklahoma City Aruba reunion in September 2007, I had the chance to talk to Stan and Warren Norcom who were involved with the 1950s cannon reclamation. I showed both of them some Google Earth aerial photo shots of the reef area, and asked them to show me where both the large cannons were found .Armed with this new information, I was interested in putting my theories to use with some "ground truth" at the sites that they had indicated.

Jack Watkins and I made the trip back to Aruba at the end of February, ready to test my theory. On Saturday, March 1 we set out for a swim out to the wreck site on the reef. The latest weather in the area had been fairly high winds with seas to match. The JADS dive boat had been temporarily relocated to the marina at the marina near the airport at Oranjestad.. We decided to swim (snorkel) out through the old channel marked by the poles and then proceed outside the reef to the search area where the cannons were found in the 50s.

 

This was not an easy exit from the lagoon; the wave action from Ivan has nearly sealed the old channel now, and the reef rock has been piled to within 3-4' of the surface. Large waves were breaking across that portion of the reef and it really was an effort to get outside the breakers. Once outside the reef again, there was a lot of current that was helping us in the swim down the reef towards our search area.

About halfway along our trek outside the reef, we started to sight green turtles beneath us and around us on the surface. We saw at least 6 large to medium-sized green turtles. I had a camera and wanted to get some close up shots but they were really skittish and I just could not get close enough for a good picture. A long-range shot would have to suffice. When growing up in Aruba, I had never seen this many turtles out in the open water before. I think it bodes well for the turtle population there, and I think they may be coming into the lagoon there to feed.

As we were lining up our trip across the search area along the reef, and knowing that with the waves we had running that day, we knew we had one shot across the search area before we would be committed to continue across the reef and into the lagoon. Just as we were entering the outer portion of my "search area" we spotted a large anchor on the bottom. This was remarkably identical to the one that was brought up in 1957, in shape and size. I took a picture of it from the surface in 25' of water just to get the entire anchor in the picture of my underwater camera.

This anchor obviously originally had a wooden stock at one time (which was now missing) and had a large ring for attaching a hawser. No chain was attached to this ring on the top of the anchor. After taking the pictures, we swam across the reef and into the lagoon. That entrance was also shallower than I had remembered in the previous decades (more than 40 years since I had snorkeled out there).

After a bit, we were ready to swim back to the Club on the inside of the lagoon. More evidence of storm damage (Ivan again) was present, as huge areas of broken up coral (staghorn, elkhorn coral) and reef rock were piled up inside the lagoon creating shallow shoals of rock that we had to swim around. The large waves were also pushing a lot of water across the reef which was making for a fierce current inside the lagoon and near the reef. I did not remember a current like that when spear fishing the reefs back in the 60s. The only solution was to keep swimming towards the Club but to allow the current to push us farther towards the middle of the lagoon. Total trip time was two hours, from the Club to our search area on the reef and back.

Judging from the vast volumes of coral and rock that are now inside the lagoon from recent storm action, I doubt that any artifacts from a shipwreck on that reef that are less dense than an anchor or cannon would have now been swept into the lagoon and covered with large amounts of rock and debris. I was looking for any other evidence of a shipwreck (even ballast stones) but that area outside the reef has been scoured of any other artifacts in the area of the track we took through there and across the reef. When the seas get calmer, it is likely that more things can be found with a more intensive search through the area.

I discussed the find with the folks at the Aruba Archaeological Museum; they want this anchor for the new museum. They had done some research on this known wreck site recently, and have dated the shipwreck that foundered there as a Spanish wreck from 1770. We shared the pictures and location on the reef with them..

With the very rough sea conditions, we did not get to explore our entire search area, and we will do that on the next trip back home.   The intrepid goggle gazers can still handle the waves and have fun doing it