Picking Food Up Off The Floor

Turtles!

Note: The picture of the hawksbill turtle was removed.  The picture was not mine, I did not have permission to publish it, nor do I know its owner.  If you happen to know its owner (seeing the picture on some cache of this page), please contact me.

Yesterday morning we got up early for a boat tour to swim with turtles and go snorkeling. Another couple were with us and they were from Canada too! We had a great time swimming alongside the Hawkbill turtles. It was really neat to rub your hand across their shells. We also saw 3 new kinds of fish right there with the turtles. They were really cool ones, one was a Ballyhoo which has a nose that looks just like a needle! After the turtles left us, we spent a lot of time just following those fish around. Then they took us to an area where a hundered-year-old ship had been sunk in the 60′s, in order to encourage more marine life, there was also a coral reef nearby. When I dove off of the boat I was surrounded by thousands of fish! It was both awesome and freaky at the same time. I did have a moment of panic and quickly looked for Mike and our other companions just so I didn’t feel so alone with the fish. The wreck was okay, not a cool as I thought it would be. No Dirk Pitt underwater adventures for me. But we spent a lot of time over the coral reef. Our new friends were snorkeling enthusiasts just like us. The water was so clear and there were so many fish to see. We decided that between this morning and our snorkeling back at our beach just before sunset, we saw 15 fish we had never seen before, plus all the ones we’d been seeing all week.We spent the afternoon picking up some souvenirs and relaxing. Then we had a snorkel at dust. I was having lots of trouble with my mask fogging up and it was quite overcast, I wasn’t enjoying myself as much as usual so I quite a little early. We had dinner at Bistro Too. I had a really yummy pineapple daiquiri and fish and chips. Mike had chicken curry. For dessert Mike had some kind of chocolate cheesecake and I had a pancake with brown sugar and ice cream. Mmmm…

Each night on the way to dinner there’s a mixed guy/girl basketball clinic of some sort going on at the basketball courts next to us. When we come home there’s a group of guys (in their 30′s maybe?) playing field hockey. So fun!

Instead of giving you our comprehensive list which gets too long, here’s a list of the new fish we saw Thursday and Friday. But first, some pictures. On the left is a porcupinefish (a kind of puffer fish) and the right is a trumpetfish .

April 13, 2007 (Turtle and Reef Boat Trip)

• Bar Jack
• Ballyhoo
• Yellowhead Wrasse
• Blue Chromis
• Banded Butterflyfish
• Foureye Butterflyfish
• Trumpetfish
• Porcupinefish
• Flying Gurnard
• Hawksbill Turtle

April 13, 2007 (Dusk)

• Yellowtailed Parrotfish
• Squirrelfish
• Brown Chromis
• Lane Snapper
• Bluespotted Cornetfish
• Leopard Searobin

(Note: Once again these pictures are not ours. Even if we had an underwater camera, we would never get these pictures, but they look exactly like what we saw.)

Posted under: Vacation