A Magical Sunset During Beach Time In Aruba

In the afternoon before our last full day in Aruba, I was finally feeling up to getting into the ocean.

This meant I got to participate in my absolute favorite thing to do on an island trip — sunset at the beach, when the sun goes down into the ocean in front of you. Living in NJ my whole life, I’m never more than 20 minutes or so from the open seas, but of course we face the wrong direction… one of the great ironies of my life choices.

More importantly though, one of my personal sidequest obsessions on trips is to watch the sun go down below the horizon. When I was on my 50 day solo trip from New Jersey to California, and then back again, I would always stop my car, wherever I was, when the sun was setting and take break from driving for a bit. Sometimes, like when I was at the Sitting Bull National Monument, it was a really spiritual experience, being alone and seeing the horizon in nearly every direction as the sun slowly went down and wind softly rippled across the tall grass.

As awesome as THAT was, I think my favorite way to experience the sun go down, is when I can watch it go down into the ocean. Especially when there are some high clouds in the sky to reflect the colors of the sun. Ask Ariel how excited I get when “the orb” actually seems to sink into the water, or how disappointed I get when some clouds pop up at the last minute and rob me of the experience. Without fail, whenever we go to any beach vacation, anywhere in the world, one of my first questions is if we can get a room with a west-facing exposure, and if there is an ocean view that way as well.

Anyway, the only thing better than having the view, is actually being IN THE WATER as this is happening. The water itself sometimes looks like it’s on fire and shares the same incredible purples, reds, and oranges of the sky.

So when I the opportunity presented itself, I was thrilled. And the scene in Aruba did NOT disappoint.

As a bonus, we got to experience it all together as a family. And after the week I had been through, it was pretty cathartic to be able to be surrounded by the people I love most, experiencing one of my favorite things to experience.

Even greater of a bonus was a pretty incredible optical phenomenon that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before. As the sun disappeared below the horizon, portions of the darkening sky were illuminated by a few conical rays of light that seemed to emanate from the ocearn. We only got a hint of it while we were actually in the water, but it became more noticeable as we went back to our room.

I’m still not entirely sure what it was, I looked it up and it may just be crepuscular or anticrepuscular rays, but as far as I can tell these were not really oriented towards or against the sun itself. If anyone knows what this is, I’d appreciate if you could drop it in the comments.

In any case this is now one of my favorite sunset memories I’ve ever gotten to experience. And while it’s not a SPECIFIC reason to go to Aruba (I assume this phenomenon happens in other places as well), it’s definitely going to be something I always think about when I think about Aruba.