On the way up to Point Udall we had passed an area that looked like a beach with facilities and decided we were going to stop on the way back and check it out. I had marked many beaches on my MapsMe but this was not one of them. I had no idea about it.

As we headed down the road we would come across this:

Once we seen that on the side of the road (and you couldn't miss it...it was humungous!) we knew on the opposite side of the road was the beach we had passed. This was the National Radio Astronomy Observatory Station. It is one of 10 across the United States. The purpose is to capture radio signals so that data can be processed and used by astronomers. I'm totally convinced they were reaching out to the aliens. This thing was HUGE!

We pulled in to the beach area (surrounded by a fence with a gate to enter) and found a place to park. There was literally no one here. I think we seen 1 other family hanging out and maybe 2 locals just sitting under the tress not by the beach.

It was a pretty large park with plenty of covered building area's with picnic tables, a life guard building, picnic tables under the trees, what looked like restrooms and showers that were closed and other buildings I had no idea what they were. This beach was very long and there was plenty of green space as well.

We picked a spot close to our parking and found ourselves a picnic table under a tree. The greeting committee showed up shortly after that.

Of course I immediately headed out with my camera's and my snorkeling gear.

Yea, there were a few fish out there around these ledges right by the edge of the water down a ways, but definitely not what I would call "snorkeling". However, we took this opportunity to teach Karl how to snorkel since he's never done it before. Sakari and I spent a lot of time with him that day and he really started to get the hang of it. He was actually doing pretty good. Sakari tried to stay right beside him but a few times he got away from her and adventured out a little more than her comfort zone liked. She needed to be within "saving you from drowning" distance. But of course where she couldn't stand up and seemed like too deep of water, he was able to stand in if needed. LOL

The water was crystal clear and we had friends circling our feet. Of course Karl wanted to know if they were going to bite him (remember he's never really been in water like this and last vacation didn't get a chance to see what is under there). We let him know the fish will swarm because we are kicking up what is in the sand.

It was time for a little mid-day snack so we all gathered around the picnic table for snacks, chips, drinks and one of Sakari's favorite snacks...vienna sausages. While we sat there, I noticed a large termite nest in the tree above us. Sakari let Karl know "Hey, we ate those termites when I was 3 years old in Belize".

We still had company circling us and looking for a handout. Our view was gorgeous.

The hubby would discover they had free wifi here.

So now we knew why there were so many buildings and green space here...people come here to camp. It says this is called Cramer Park, but on the map it says the name of the beach is Cottongarden Bay Beach.

After lunch we headed back out to the water for a bit and I decided to try some over/under pictures. This is what I came up with. (It's always more interesting if you do them when there's fish or rocks or something under the water to focus on, but I used the kids as my subject to make up for there being not much of anything around.

Here's a short video of the area to show just how beautiful it is and how large the beach is:

After awhile, we decided to pack up and move on down the road to see what other beach we might find.