Night Snorkel

Tonight, I led our Night Snorkel for the first time. I was super apprehensive about leading the snorkel for a few reasons. 

1) Its at night. The boogie man comes out at night. Among other things that scare us at night. 

2) When Im in the water, I tend to have a harder time determining where I am and it makes me nervous.

3) Im not completely comfortable as a snorkeler myself, so having to be in charge of others who are not great snorkelers makes me anxious.

4) What if we don't see anything or the guests are having a bad time or I can't point out anything??

5) Its cold at night. What if I get too cold and want to come in early or am just miserable the whole time?

So in any case, Ty has been doing a lot of the snorkeling because of this list and he told me that I was leading the snorkel tonight. 

I had a good day and was feeling pretty good about the snorkel. There was only a family of four signed up, no problem. 

The whole family was pretty receptive to everything that Ty and I were telling them which was perfect. We get into the not too frigid water and are off on our journey. Right off the bat we start seeing awesome creatures. 

One was a reef squid that had his/her tentacles up to blend in with the sea grass. It was beautiful and we all got a pretty close look at it. I was about a foot away from it before it scared and swam off.

Next we saw a pretty big trunk fish which is a boxy looking fish that was squatted down in the sea grass. 

Then, a sea turtle! As soon as my light shined on the beautiful creature, I yelled over to the rest of my group to have them come over and see! She followed us around for a little bit on the reef, getting pretty close to us. It was the highlight of the snorkel I thought!

I was also able to find a west indian sea egg which is a white sea urchin. I let the guests hold it in their hand and after about 5 seconds, the creature uses its tube feet to stick on and if you turn your hand over, it sticks!

A porcupine puffer also decided to join us. They are a large puffer fish and this one i guess was about a foot and a half to two feet. They also have an adorable face with a slight smile and large eyes.

Then an eel. This eel completely came out of its hiding place and we were able to watch it swim for a bit, super cool.

We saw a huuuuge hermit crab crawling along the bottom, a bunch of snail shells and a sea star. 

Once we got to land, I wasn't cold (until I got out) so it was a great night snorkel for my first one and I can't wait to do it again!