Snorkel on Xmas

A neighbor told us that he went snorkeling with the sharks while in the Bahamas, and got us thinking that would be cool. So that is exactly what we did 1 st thing in th morning on Xmas. I was hesitant because it was kind of expensive, and it wasn't clear to me about the logistics such as drinking water, bathrooms, food, and what I really needed to bring with me. The only other time I went on a Bahama's snorkel trip, the tour group had no food, no bathroom (ok, so the ocean is the world's bathroom, but what if I had to make a bm?), and no drinking water, but they seemed to have gallons and gallons of free red rum punch. Yeah, and there were a few people on that boat who barfed red rum. Anyway, I signed up for the Xmas 2006 trip anyway.

This time around, we went with Stuart and Michelle Cove, one of the few Nassau dive shops. They were serious about the trip. They sold water, Gatorade, and snacks. They have real bathrooms and showers. They sold underwater cameras and fish food. I took advantage of all the beverages, bathroom, camera and fish food. They offer real SCUBA dive tours. They have good snorkeling equipment, although I brought my own to use. So we set out for a 3 hour tour with our Irish Bahamian tour guide on Xmas.

The first stop, I took my underwater camera and took pictures as I fed the fish. They were mostl blue and yellowtails. They just swarmed me while I dropped little fish food pellets into the open water.

Here is another photo of the fish at stop one. There are quite a few yellowtail fish. Are these fish the same ones that I enjoy eating raw with a little ponzu and wasabi?

At the 2nd stop, the fish were bigger, and there were a different variety of fish. There was one that I could not quite get a good photo of, but it had a bunch of colorful scales, and big white lips! It looked like it was a painted fish.

We wrapped up the 2nd stop and we were making our way to the 3rd stop - SHARKS! If you can remember, S. Florida, and the Bahamas was slated for rough weather and rain on Xmas, so we were heading into rough waters, 5-10 ft swales, and water splashing over the deck as we went.

We finally get to stop 3, drenched, and apparently some people were being land lubbers, getting a bit sick to their stomach. Oh well, I jumped right in to see the sharks! How cool is that? These sharks are just little reef sharks (5 - 6 ft, 2 m), and they were interested in the chunks of dead fish the tour guide was going to feed them. So, as you can see in the photo above, I was swimming with the sharks. There were kids, teenagers and men on the boat with me, and they did not go in! There was a Wisconsin mom, the other 3 in my party, and me who went in with the sharks. Ha! All the kids and teens were shown up by a soccer mom and us! Ha! So there!

It was time to get out of the water, and this is the view of the sharks from the boat as we were getting ready to head back to shore. All in all I feel this trip was successful as I did not blow chunks!

tagged with: snorkel bahamas