SNORKEL PARK AT NIGHT
We came here twice, on 2 different cruises, and enjoyed our time here. I will include both reviews on this page.
This was a day of walking around the dockyard for awhile, so we decided it was time to check out Snorkel Park in the evening. It said "Free Admission" and I was ok with that.
I think we decided that we were just going to watch the sunset here and forget about putt putting. I was fine with that and we were happy just exploring the place.
Aww, the perfect place to take romantic pictures...
Kendra thought so too and kissed the air
We talked her boyfriend in to going up there with her for that "perfect sunset picture". Then Kendra thought she would take this moment to be funny again...then they had their happily ever after...
Ok enough of that icky stuff as Sakari says...on with the tour of Snorkel Park.
Notice the sun going down and then beside it there's a huge rain cloud raining out in the water?
The sunset was just a spectacular view!!!
They had several campfires there that night and you could roast marshmallows and make smores.
Now someone tell me why a rooster is up in the tree?
Hubbys a Scorpio...
Time to head back to the ship and it was around 8:30pm.
The sky behind us was a crazy display.
This is the time we decided to go to Snorkel Park and actually snorkel.
Our choice for this day might not interest a lot of you because many have said that snorkeling here isn't the greatest. Well, this was our experience, so you decided....
We decided to stay close to the pier and head to Snorkel Park. I know there's a lot of people on here that always try to steer clear of this place. After all, it's a man made beach, not the nicest sand, not a big beach, they charge you $5 to get in (where the other beaches are free) and I have even read reports awhile back about broken glass and getting cut up.
So while this might not be our first choice of places to go, it was the best choice for what was supposed to be a short day. After the Captain changed the time to leave, well we had already planned to go here and I had made enough rearranging of plans to last me the entire cruise. Today we were just sticking to the original plan and that's all there was too it. It would just last a little longer.
Now I will say that since we went to Snorkel Park last time we were here, I did know what it was like on the other side of the walls. We only went during the evening and not for swimming. But, we did enjoy ourself and I figured it would just be an extension to the last time except we would get to swim this time.
We met the kids outside the gate and we all headed toward the park. You can follow the footprints all the way to the park.
Looking up at the entrance to the park, I believe they have baby stalactites growing.
Once we paid our $5 entrance fee (for adults, kids are free under 12 I believe is the age) we headed to the beach to find our spot for the day.
This would be the first time that the munchkins got to come here since we sent them to the kids club for our nightly outing last time. So they loved the big chair that us girls took pictures in last time.
When you pay your admittance fee to get in, they give you these hard plastic toy like "coupons" for $1 off a coconut drink.
Hey if you don't use them, they made good souvenirs or play money for the kids. I will use mine in my scrapbook.
These would be the coconuts you could get with the coupon and they fill it with your favorite drink.
I believe that Michelle was the only one that ended up getting one of the coconut drinks. She only wanted it to take home as a souvenir. I think she said it was some outrageous price like $14 for the drink. Yikes!
Although there were already a lot of people here, there was still plenty of room for us to pick a location. Once again, we decided not to get any lounge chairs or umbrella and just rough it on the sand with our towels and blankets. Kendra would later decide she wanted a chair. It automatically came with an umbrella and we would laugh at her laying on the chair like she was sunning and had her towel wrapped around her head with just her lips sticking out...and she was in the shade...no sun. It was pretty hilarious to watch. Uh, well maybe you had to be there. But we thought it was funny.
After laying our things out at our new beach front property, which happen to be located in about the second row behind a line of chairs, the BOYS actually said "Let's go snorkeling mom!" I was a little shocked since it's usually Kendra that wants to go. But we didn't even have time to sit down before they were ready to go. As always, I was game.
The one thing about the water this time in Bermuda was it was cold(er) than last time. It did take some getting use to, but once you were in it for a little bit, you got use to it and didn't notice the cold anymore.
At this point, Kenny is splashing Kolin and making a game out of it. I bet in my mind that Kenny would be the first to dive into the water and get it over with, and yes...I know my boys well. Kenny dove in.
Everyone geared up and it was time to see what this place had to offer under the water...
We had a little guy that decided he would follow us...and he actually followed us the entire time no matter where we went. It was funny how he would go in between Kolins legs whenever he would stand up. Awww, Kolin has a new friend.
One thing I noticed is that there are a lot of anemones here. There was a lot of yellow sea sponges as well. They were everywhere. I always wonder if these are the same type of sponge they use when you purchase them in the stores to wash with. Anyone know?
I spotted a parrotfish. Of course it wasn't the huge magnificent green ones, but at least another parrotfish. I really had hoped that Kenny & Kolin could see the size of these things. It just wasn't going to happen this cruise. This was a small one and it would be the only one we seen that day. Once again, zoom is never a good idea.
There were plenty of surgeon fish in the area as well.
I was so glad that the water was clear and the sun was out. It made for a good experience.
There was a lot of coral in the area of various types.
There were a lot of pretty sea fans here as well. From deep dark purple to light purple and also maroon.
From here on...we went all over the place and pretty far out. I'm snapping pictures of all the fish and the coral and anything that caught my eye. I'm taking pictures of the boys snorkeling and we are having a good time. At one point I stopped, took a picture and for some reason I came up to go back and view the picture...that's when I noticed that my camera was froze. It wouldn't review the pictures, it wouldn't take a picture, the screen was on, but that was it. GASP! Now I'm freaking out and had no idea if I had even gotten any pictures. The camera wouldn't even turn off. :eek:
So we headed back to the beach to check it out.
Once we got there, I had to actually remove the battery in order to get it to turn off. I'm really not sure what happened and this is the first time it had ever happened. I'm hoping it never happens again. I love my cameras. I did miss a lot of great pictures with this happening and I didn't have any of the pictures of the boys snorkeling. I was so sad and told them they would have to come back out with me so that I could get pictures of them. They sad they were going to rest and get warm in the sun and would go back out in a little bit. I guess these 20 something year olds just don't have my energy. hahahahaha
I look out toward the ocean and we see this...
Obviously we could tell it was a Carnival ship, but no idea which one. I didn't realize that we would have company on this day, but was happy to know that we did have a great stay here in Bermuda without another ship here.
We watched this ship for awhile and it would head our direction, then turn, then it looked like it was heading back out and Kendra kept asking me "Why is it leaving? Or is it waiting for us to leave before it comes in?" I told her there's 2 "parking spaces", so it's not waiting on us and probably following the "path" to come in, which winds back and forth. (When we pulled out today, I mentioned to her that this was the case and had her watch the path we took...and told her we probably appeared drunk, weaving back and forth, to the Carnival ship now.
As the day went on, as you can tell, the beach and water got crowded. I believe this was THE thing to do on this last port day. Everyone had the same idea as us...stay close to the ship. I didn't really mind too much since I really wasn't here to enjoy the beach and with us snorkeling, you wouldn't find too many people out in that area. So, "we" weren't crowded.
Well, if the boys wont come back in the water, I'd talk the girls into coming with me...and off we went.
I would find several foureyed butterfly fish that day.
One thing I always forget to do is to look up toward the surface of the water when snorkeling. I'm always so busy looking down, but there's things to be seen up as well. I need to get better at paying attention to ALL of my surroundings. This time I would catch some squid swimming up toward the top. It caught me off guard and by the time I put my camera up, most of them had scurried off, but I manage to capture this one...not a good picture, but oh well.
Taking a picture looking up or forward is always such a hard thing to do. There's gotta be some sort of special technique to it. It didn't help that the water was stirred up at this point.
I think with all the people in the water now, it was just getting too stirred up for great pictures. I was getting frustrated.
I told the girls we needed to head out a lot further to avoid all the water and sand being stirred up. Courtney gets a little worried because she's not a strong swimmer to begin with. Her family never learn to swim so therefore, she never really had much of a chance to learn growing up. But, she does know how to swim, she just makes sure she stays close to us all the time and has been known to grab me at times to hold on.
I assured her that things would be fine because even way out there, you could touch the bottom. I warned her to make sure when she needed a break to look under her and make sure there was no coral before putting her feet down and then take a break.
Kendra's signature pose. At least it's 2 fingers instead of 1. (wink wink)
Kendra needed to adjust her goggles and I manage to catch her at the right moment...oops, her hair was stuck in them. LOL
As you can tell, the water was getting clearer and I was happier.
I have noticed these little green sea grapes a lot here in Bermuda, both this trip and the last trip.
I love diving down and getting close ups of the coral and the details in them. (Of course remember you can touch everywhere here, so it's not really "diving" per-sē, but just going down under the water to the bottom).
I was really trying to achieve the look that I was swimming in the sea weed thingys and getting a close up detail of their outstretched arms, but since I was moving and they were moving, the close up just wasn't turning out like I wanted it to.
We made it pretty far out and continued to explore.
Courtney keeping up with us. Aww, look at her poor fingers...this should give you an indication of just how long we were out there. LOL
I'm always the one with the camera, so very seldom do I get in the pictures. So, it was selfie time.
We headed back over toward the wall and decided to come back in. Courtney said she was tired of swimming and wanted to go back. But she had been saying this for awhile and just never left. I would then find out she was too scared to go back by herself, which meant she wanted us to take her back.
Along the way, because someone like me is not just going to simply go back quickly, we snorkeled of course. I have to explore on the way back.
Then we came across this...yikes! I didn't realize they had fire coral in this area. It was actually in very shallow water and I know that Sakari had been swimming here earlier. She would have freaked out and probably not went back out in the water had she known their was fire coral there. She got a nasty sting by one of them in Cozumel at Passion Island and she brings it up constantly when we are in the water.
Kendra managed to find this green beauty and started frantically pointing it out to me.
Then something caught my eye as well and I frantically pointed it out to her...
Well hello there Mr Octopus! The first octopus we have ever seen was one that Kendra found at Grand Turk in April. It was so neat to watch it turn from brown to white when you came near it. This time, the lucky find was all MINE! haha
We would keep our distance for awhile and wait for him to come out of the hole. He would turn brown, but any movement from us and especially me trying to get a picture, he would quickly turn white and head back in the hole. So, I was forced to zoom in and try to get the best picture I could if I wanted to see him brown.
I wonder if he realizes that this camouflage technique is not working to his advantage when he turns white. I actually makes it so you can see him better. LOL
Back the beach we went and decided to leave him alone to go about his business. We were happy to have found him.
...and things get stirred up again and I give up.
When we get back, I find that Kenny & Michelle, once again, had left. So I guess I would not be getting any snorkeling pictures of Kenny. Sigh. They said they wanted to go shopping before they had to be back on the ship and I guess that was understandable.
We all decided to pack up and head back to the ship, shower and get into something dry and head out shopping at well.
It was a decent day at Snorkel Park and I'm glad we got to experience it and see what it was actually like. The snorkeling wasn't bad, not the greatest I have done, but there were a variety of soft and hard corals, fans, a "few" fish...nothing spectacular other than getting to see some squid and the octopus. But, it made for a good day and enjoyable and that's all that matters.
As for the reports of their being glass and trash in the water. I did find 1 plastic cup in the water when snorkeling. No glass. So, they must clean it up and when others have reported these things, my thoughts are as follows....HOW do these cups or bottles get in the water? They get there by people coming to this place and throwing them out there!! So that is no fault of Snorkel Park but of those inconsiderate enough to do this. If there's trash laying around, that's the people that come there. So don't blame the park for this. Pick up after yourselves! Keep the beaches beautiful no matter where you go and you won't have this problem. Only you are responsible for you. Do you part and stop acting like just because you're on vacation, everyone should do it for you. Don't forget your manors. End of rant...and just the way I see things.
I can't really tell you how much things cost here. Since we would be heading back to the ship to eat, I never checked out prices. We always bring our own cooler with pop in it so that we don't have to buying drinks. I do know that if you bought pop here, it came in a small plastic cup and was $3.00. A total rip off.
So we left at 2pm and as we headed out, we spotted the same roosters around the trees as before.
Back out the tunnel we went and headed back to the ship.
