Curacao Day 9: Submarine Celebration

Today I woke up a year older and in a new decade of my life. It was my 40th birthday. Since that's kind of a momentous occasion, we wanted to do something a little different. We booked a submarine ride with Substation Curacao. We would travel 500 feet below the surface in a submarine. I was a little nervous about this, not about something awful happening, but mainly about being claustrophobic. But I could tell online that there was a large picture window in the sub so I was hoping this would stave off those feelings. Our appointment was at 11a and we arrived a little early for orientation.

We watched a safety video and drew designs on Styrofoam cups that would be strapped to our sub to show compression at 500 ft.

Afterwards, we went outside and watched them lower the sub into the water with a crane.

They had us take our shoes off and put on socks to wear on-board the sub.

This is the boat that rides along on the surface above the sub for safety reasons.

Then it was time to climb aboard through the very, very small porthole.

Luckily it was just the two of us and the pilot.

Sometimes they fill it with four guests. Honestly, for the price you pay to do this, I would be pretty upset about that. There would not be enough room to be comfortable and have a good view if that were the case. The pilot sits in the back and we layed down on either side in front of him, looking out the big picture window.

We descended slowly underwater. The chase boat remained above us and a scuba diver followed us down to 50 or 60 feet to take pictures.

Porkfish.

Unfortunately, we saw LOTS of lionfish.

The deepest were at over 400 feet. I have no idea what they eat at that depth.

Some new species of fish have been discovered during sub rides. These are some discovered recently at almost 500 feet.

Our deepest depth on the gauge.

Black coral on the way back up.

Coral overhang.

Small fish hiding in a barrel sponge.

Schoolmasters.

French angelfish.

The ride lasted about an hour and a half and was more scientific in nature than scenic but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Not many people get to have such an experience. Afterwards, we were hungry so we stopped at a local restaurant on the beach called Seaside Terrace.

I had some fried lionfish that were wonderful.

Mike had crab salad.

We drove back to the house to relax for a while. We spent a couple of hours on the back porch then decided to go back into town for some shopping and casino time. That would be shopping for me and casino time for Mike. By this time, Mike was starting to feel a flare up coming on. But it was my birthday so he powered on through my birthday dinner at The Wine Cellar. He wasn't hungry at all but ordered some stuffed mushrooms. He didn't end up eating any and the kind waiter noticed and removed them from our bill. I, on the other hand, had lobster bisque and chateaubriand. Although this restaurant receives very high reviews and the service was outstanding, I thought the food was much better at other restaurants we visited. Since Mike wasn't feeling well, we went home to bed.