Snorkeling!!!!

The whole reason for our trip, and the part of the trip that I most dreaded, was the day we were going to go snorkeling.  Now, for those who don't know this about me - I have had a phobia about deep water ever since encountering a shark off the North Carolina coast while in High School.  It plagued me through all my years of working for SeaWorld.  Difficult to be enthusiastic about "Terrors of the Deep" to your clients when you want to pass out in the exhibit!  And I had not been in the ocean beyond my knees for over 20 years now!  So, needless to say I didn't want to go.

The night before we were supposed to go out, Lauren got stung by a jellyfish out in the resort lagoon.  They have a lot of seagrass in there, and apparently these little nettles called upside-down jellyfish feed in there.  David, Jason and I all were stung, but they were just mildly irritating.  Lauren had been stung already, when she got stung badly on her back.  She was up all night with an allergic reaction to it - felt itchy inside she said and couldn't hold still.  So, I was partially thinking I would have an "out" on our excursion and have to stay behind with her.

No such luck.  She recovered quickly the little stinker, and nothing would keep her down - unless I lied to her and told her she might be stung again.....hmmmm?  So out we went.  This is the boat ride with the resort behind us.  A trip through the mangrove forests of the Pennekamp state park, and then out to clear water.....

Oh!  So blue!  It was as if the water had some sort of luminous glow.  We went 5 miles out to sea and stopped at that buoy you can barely see on the horizon - the "Molasses Reef".

I still had some reservations, but thought I would at least try to just swim around close to the boat.    At first, I had trouble getting my breathing under control.  It brought back to many memories of asthma attacks as a kid, and I had some mild anxiety about it, but soon got the hang of the breathing.  Jason and Lauren jumped right in - no looking back, no hesitation!

  Eventually we were all in the water, and when I saw how far my kids were from me, my mother instincts overrode my fear and I went out with them.  I wouldn't say the phobia is conquered, but it seems to have more to do with not being able to see what's in the water with me, and this was so clear that I was ok.

This is the classic snorkeling butt shot.

Soon, Jason learned how to hold his breath and prevent the water from going up the snorkel and was able to dive down to get a closer look.  This is truly his idea of what heaven would be like.  He has always said that he wanted to be a marine biologist, and we thought maybe this trip would cement that dream enough to get us through HS science!  He was the only one of us to give up the noodle and swim on his own the whole time!

We were able to get some underwater cameras at Walmart and they worked pretty well.

David peeking!

The cameras did a good enough job to capture the sea turtle!  Lauren was thrilled - it's her favorite animal next to a horse!  We also saw a sting ray but didn't get a good picture.  Lots of barracuda too!

And I heard later, that there were some nurse sharks seen, but fortunately not by me!  I would not have been this far away from the boat if we had!










It was a fabulous day and an experience that I'll never forget!    I think it's probably the first of many trips where we might try to find an opportunity to do a little snorkeling!

Smiles,



Susan