Snorkeling in the Bahamas

A few weeks ago I went on a cruise to the Bahamas. One of the excursions that were available was snorkeling. 

My friend and I have both done it before but thought it would be fun to do it again. The night prior we were planning out how the following day was going to go. If you have cruised before you know each evening they put the sheet under your door for the activities for the following day. When looking over the sheet we thought there were quite a bit of activities going on during the day while we were docked. I know some people don’t even get off and just like enjoying the ship to themselves. They even had the Newlywed game going on that afternoon. The snorkeling was only supposed to be in the morning so we would have time to get back on the ship to watch that (that’s my favorite).  We even saw that this was the formal night. Well that’s odd I thought why wouldn’t they put formal night the day at sea?  That evening we wanted to watch a comedy show but knew we had a big day ahead of us so we decided to head to bed early. 

The next morning we wake up, and my friend says look out the window do you see us docked? I said nope I only see water. Well we must be docked from the other side my friend said. We continued to get our stuff packed up and went up for breakfast. We were wondering why we didn’t hear any announcements that we were docked and what time to make sure to be back on the ship.  We continued to the lower level where we thought was the way off the ship. But we didn’t see any signs or people. We finally saw a crew member and asked how do we get off this thing? His English was pretty poor but he said We are still sailing. I thought well he doesn’t know what we are asking. I responded Well are we late to dock because we have snorkeling reservations at 9?. Meanwhile another crew member came behind us and said ladies this is our day at sea, tomorrow is when we go to Bahamas. We both looked at each other and began to laugh uncontrollably. We totally missed all those signs that were clearly right in front of our face. She probably thought those newbies even though we both have been on a handful of cruises (another reason to know something wasn’t quite right).   

So the following day came and we finally met our group for our snorkeling excursion. There were probably 20 of us or so on the catamaran. We sailed about 40 minutes out until we arrived at a coral reef. We were instructed on how to properly place and use the equipment. Then  the stairs were lowered and we were all on our own. 

Now I have done this several times and every time I feel like it’s going to be better than the last one so I wanted to keep trying it. But after several attempts of snorkeling I came to the conclusion

 1. No matter what time of year you do it the water is always cold.

 2. You never see as many colorful and big fish you hope to see.  

Once you were in for a few minutes you did get use to the water but then you have to worry about is my mask on tight enough so water doesn’t leak in? Is my snorkel tube up high enough that I don’t get salt water in my mouth? And making sure your flippers are tight enough to stay on but not too tight that you’ll have trouble moving. There are so many variables that go into snorkeling. Good thing we didn’t scuba dive! Luckily everything fell into place and I was able to enjoy it for a bit. I thought that all the fish looked the same and they were not that colorful.

 All these people were still our snorkeling and I was thinking are they seeing something else that I don’t? After snorkeling for about 25 minutes I was over it and went back on the boat. But of course as soon as I came back on the boat, someone said they saw a sea turtle….figures! 

 We were able to swim around for about an hour, which was probably more time than you needed. If you were out there long enough you got to the point where you were just treading water and were ready to be done because you were exhausted! After getting a good work out in we were able to enjoy some rum punch on the way back to the dock.  

We were enjoying our drinks and some music when there was this huge yacht that passed us going faster than they should have. This made for very big waves to follow. So big that where we were sitting got completely soaked! Everything from our towels, bags, phones (luckily mine dried out).  My friend even lost her water bottle from the waves. Luckily it was just a cheap plastic one and it wasn’t an expensive Yeti, but still. After we arrived back we decided to just head to the pools while they were not crowded and enjoy some sunshine, rather than walking around Nassau, since we both had already been there several times. 

Have you ever went snorkeling somewhere and have been amazed by what you saw? If so, I need to know where so I can try it because everywhere I have been has just been mediocre.  ~L

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