Day Three: Flamenco Beach and Snorkeling with Sea Turtles!

No early morning phone call today so we slept in a bit...until about 7:30 because the sun was yelling at us to get up. Yeah, we're on the front end of our time zone, so our sun comes up lots earlier than yours (I'm assuming you're probably reading this in Michigan!) and sets earlier, too. In fact when we Skype with Stan and Jessie at 7:30 p.m. we're in complete darkness and they still have some sun! It's kinda wierd...

Hannah at a busy Flamenco Beach

Hannah's been asking to visit Flamenco Beach. However, we arrived on the weekend so I wanted to wait until the visitors from the main island had left. I figured today would be a good day. It was okay, but still way more crowded than I like it. In fact, it's best when there's no one else there! And that's happened to us several times in the past!

Tamarindo Beach...AKA "The Ugly Beach" (Even though it isn't)

After a short stay there we went looking for some snorkeling equipment and headed to Tamarindo Beach. Now, for any of you who have seen my Culebra pictures, I lovingly call this the "ugly beach" because, well, it's ugly compared to Zoni or Flamenco! However, the snorkeling is wonderful and if you snorkel around the reef at the south end you can continue on to Resaca Beach, which also has wonderful snorkeling! And that's what we did. 


My Hannah is a CHAMP!!!


We snorkeled for probably an hour and a half to two hours, and she was into it every second! Within the first five minutes, we spied a young green sea turtle grazing on the sea grasses. She was so graceful in the water and seemed to not have a care in the world. As we held hands and flipped our flippers, we would point out other interesting plants and animals in God's spectacular aquarium!


After a while, though, I suddenly realized I had swum right up to the reef we were supposed to swim around, and we were trapped there with too little space to turn around. Although we were both a bit freaked by it we ended up standing on the rocks (which you are NOT supposed to do) to figure out how to get ourselves out of our dilemma. Eventually we did and just as I was coming to grips with my guilt over messing up the reef, a guy on a boat came by and told me we needed to swim around the reef instead of on it so we don't kill it. Geez, I felt really awful, but fortunately Hannah only caught the part of his little speech that instructed us to swim AROUND it when we went back. We thanked him for his help...

Our plan was then to keep the sea grass always in sight (if possible) on one side and the reef on the other to avoid another mishap. It worked really well, and in addition to seeing all kinds of beautiful fish, from tiny to about four or five feet long, we were treated with a visit with a Hawksbill Sea Turtle that looked very much like the one in the picture! 

A Hawksbill Sea Turtle (NOT the one we actually saw, but looked just like this one!)

It truly was a spectacular experience, snorkeling with my 12-year-old, and reminded me of why we came here: for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure that will shape the rest of her life.

Hannah combed the beach for sea glass upon our return to land and soon we decided it was time to head for the shower and supper! She was in bed by 8:00 and when I went in to pray with her shortly after, she was already asleep.

Thank you, God, for the sights we saw today. Thank you for allowing us to do this together.