Snorkeling

I remember there was a girl in my elementary school classes who every year got left behind while her parents took vacation to Hawaii, Aruba, or Jamaica. At the time I was jealous that her parents would always bring her fabulous souvenirs. It wasn't until I was older and I realized that must have been so sad for her.

That's part of the reason why we pretty much always take our children on our trips with us. That plus I just want to. It's like when you fall in love with your spouse and suddenly all of the fun things you've done or places you've visited just aren't as great until you share it with "The One"! I feel that way about our children too, they have loved our many adventures.

We went on another adventure yesterday. We took a bus to the ferry station, then took the ferry to a little island not far from Cancun called Isla Mujeres.

We had a nice little lunch at a mexican restaurant and then walked along the beach until we found a guy to take us out on his boat for a private snorkeling trip. Many people have reccommended us going this route instead of with a big tour. And if you know me, I hate going on the huge tours with all of the cruise people.
The great thing was that he only charged us about $100 for everyone. The big tours are nearly that much per person.
So people ask me all the time if it is really worth the girls traveling with us since they are so little and won't remember. First, I think that is completely untrue because they remember. Secondly, they enjoy the experiance just as much as we do!Lola volunteered to watch the little girls so we could go snorkeling with just the boys. But we couldn't leave them behind. They were so excited to jump in and swim with the fish.
Rose never really kept her mask on, but she sure did use her flippers. She would just swim around in the open ocean, which seems kind of crazy to think of a 4 year old swimming around, but it was pretty safe and we stuck by her even though she didn't really want us to hold her.
This trip was by far the best snorkeling we have seen on our visits to Cancun. We tried Cozumel before but it was just from the beach and wasn't very good. Actually this was the best snorkeling we have ever done. In Grand Caymen there weren't even as many fish, although the coral was much prettier.

Our guide took us two spots. At the first one the current was a little more rough, not too bad-we could totally swim in it just fine, but he jumped in with a buey for the boys to hang onto as he pulled them all around. They liked that!
Even Ginger was in love with snorkeling. The water is so crystal clear that you don't have to put your face under to see all the fishes.
There were some spots when the fishes literally swam up to the surface and within just 1-2 inches of the girls chests. It was crazy! And we weren't feeding them or anything, which if my favorite way to snorkel.

The water was so full of fish. So many times I had to stop and backtrack because I was afraid of swimming into a big school of fish.
Darin under the sea. We totally LOVE our waterproof digital camera! A couple of days ago a guy walking by totally got annoyed at me because I was sitting and building a sand snowman with the kids and he was graciously informing me that I was ruining my camera by letting the surf get it wet a couple of feet away from us. I kept telling him it was okay, but he did not understand. We even have an arm band for the camera that will make it float to the top if we ever drop it in deep water. It's awesome!

Nathan under the sea! There were so many great fishes in our first location that Nathan didn't want to get in at the 2nd. His eyes were stinging from the salt water.

There were tons of fishes that I don't know their name, but we also saw 4 squid, starfishes, 5 barracudas, red snapper, and then pretty yellow, blue, and purple fishes.
After the first dive.

The 2nd location was a little deeper but even better then the first. In one section you practically couldn't move without touching a fish. We also saw 3 very large fishes, like probably 4-5 feet long. We didn't get any pictures of them, at least not any that showed more then 1/3 of their body. Probably because me and Darin were freaking out screaming and pointing under the water.


Darin took the camera for the 2nd half and captured some great pictures. He loved snorkeling with the camera. He told me later that it was more fun when he had it.

Our little mermaid girl. She could have stayed in the water for another two hours. It is so unbelieveable how much she loved snorkeling.



Returning to the Island. That was some awesome Snorkeling!
Ken and I are debating if we want to go back again on our two days where we stay at the hotel without the kids. We were actually going to go scuba diving, but Ken won't let me with my back problems even though I feel so much better now. The only thing is that I get kind of sick on ferry rides and we don't really want to have that ruin our romantic time away. On the ferry ride home. It was a beautiful day and I am so thankful that I could experiance it with my children and Ken!
I'm not the only one who gets a little sick on the ferry:-)