Yup, we volunteered as shark bait and jumped in during feeding time. This was not without hesitation though. It took some coaxing from Captain Danny, "just you go girls, dey don do anyting. Dey lazies shahks in da sea." So we jumped in with the nurse sharks. The babies were around 3-5 feet the adults 8-10 feet. Humongous sting rays skimmed the ocean floor. Danny pulled one up by its teeth with a wingspan of 4-5 feet.
This spot is known as shark ray alley. We didn't know what we were getting into but turns out the name is pretty obvious.
Captain Danny might have been wrong about the nurse sharks though, Verna came back with a shark nom.
Turns out they like hot pink pedicures. Danny laughed and said, "ees very lucky, yu hev gud luck girl."
Next stop was Hol Chan marine reserve, which is part of the barrier reef. This was by far the best snorkeling EVER. We made friends with a few horse eyed jacks that joined our tour. First thing we saw was a sea turtle, right when we got in. Danny kept pointing at Florence to tell her that the turtle was right behind her but being the oblivious person she is, had no idea what he was trying to signal. Oh well, we all still saw the turtle having his sea grass lunch, nom nom nom.
Then a green moray eel came slithering up. We all instinctively swam away as fast as we could but Captain Danny decided to play footsie with it. After that, we weren't quite as scared but eels are still creepy, snakes of the sea. Especially 5 ft of electric green of them.
Danny guided us along the reef, trying to swat away our horse eyed jack friends but with no avail, they were part of our group. We had never seen such large schools of fish, different types of fish, coral, daddy long leg looking crabs, and probably a dozen other creatures we can't remember the names of. Danny would point at different fish and sea life then educate us on their names - fish we had never heard of: blue headed wrass, yellow striped wrass, sergeant majors, a variety of snapper, trumpet fish and so many more beautiful fish we can't remember all living in beds of fan coral, elk horn coral, brain coral - it was amazing! The area that snorkelers are allowed in is sectioned off by buoys. Danny took us to the edge, kind of looked back at us and said, "stay in snorkel position, don get scratched by coral." And kept going so we followed. This was truly amazing - the reef here was so lush. We saw an even bigger variety of fish here, more colorful, plentiful and varied then in the main snorkel area. This was truly special. We looked back at one point an saw all the other snorkelers by the boats and just our group in this secluded area. Captain Danny was the best. We wish we had some photos but you'll just have to come out on a trip yourself to experience it first hand.
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