Skip to main content

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!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Red = Passion

Yesterday, I had a shit-eating grin as I was winding through local streets, pedaling and feeling the warm breeze in my hair. I recently, in the last month, moved to the DC area and have been struggling to fit in and find my place. This month, Ty and I got our own room in a place that we share with a few others that are our roommates in our new town. But there are still so many things that are missing in my life. I need yoga, rock climbing and freedom to get around on my own. On Tuesday afternoon, I took that first step at transportation freedom in the form of a two wheeled vehicle. I took the metro to Virginia which is a bit of a ride from my new home on the Maryland side. I stopped at one of the last metro stops and walked out into the sunny, nice weather. I was meeting someone from craigslist who was selling a little, red Schwinn bike. I exited the station and immediately saw the little red bike being held up by a sweet looking, older man. I introduced myself, took the bike for a...

Guatemala: Day One Adventure

The following is a conglomeration of journal writings that I made about my travel day to San Marcos, Guatemala and some additions to make it all run together smoothly: 11/5/15 6:60am Chicago I JUST made my first flight. It helped that the dude behind me in the security line was on my flight. We chatted a bit about travel and it eased my mind a little. I get so stressed out when Im not early... I had to take the earliest bus from Milwaukee at 4:30 am. I slept three hours. 10:55am ATL I think I smell... I didn't do that deodorant thing this morning. Whatever. I had less than an hour layover and had to run through the huge ATL airport to get to my gate. I got there with a bit of time though which is nice. Im between two not so fun humans. One is a very large man who thinks he can have half of my seat (though at least he seems nice) and an older woman who I don't think speaks good spanish or engligh. Also, when she's passed out its fine but as soon as she wakes up, the ...

Best Friends

I swear that I have the best friends on the planet and I know everyone is jealous. But Ill share them! Last night I went to Milwaukee to see a friends band play on Water St. It took a lot of energy to leave the house. Oh, how I wanted an early evening and to cuddle up in bed with a good book. We all know that those end up being the best nights out, when it was hard to get out in the first place! There ended up being a huge group of us. Ive always wanted a large group of friends and now Ive got it. And even more friends around the world. I can't believe how awesome that is and how awesome they all are! Anyway... We pretty much took over the dance floor with our crazy moves. It was so fun! I got a text from my mom saying that I should just stay in Milwaukee considering the bad roads after the first snowfall. I didn't argue. On the hike back to the apartment after the show, there was snow everywhere and it was cooold. Thank goodness my friends are so great and threw snowba...