Lots more snorkeling!

Yesterday we took a snorkel boat tour. It was cool, but it wasn't what we were expecting. The tour description said we would snorkel three reefs. We actually snorkeled in two spots, one was sort of a reef. The difference is that you can't swim to the reefs from shore (except for the one at Punta Sur, and I'm sure you all remember my experience doing that last year.) So, the places that the boat took us to were places we could have drove to and swam on our own. However, we still enjoyed it. Plus, the boat had a section with a glass bottom, so you could watch the water below as you rode along.

The first stop was pretty shallow -- nothing new there. But during the second stop we swam out until we were in water about 30-40 feet deep. We saw some new fish there, including these cool black ones with bluish-white outlines on their tails
and this massive fish. It was at least half the size of me, probably a bit larger than that.
When we went out really deep, Dave spotted this fish. It was quite large, too.
And at one point, I looked down and was surprised to see people below me! Apparently, this is a popular scuba spot for beginners.
Here's a good general photo of the coral from the deep-water snorkel. This photo is taken from about 30 feet above, so you're probably looking at 40-50 feet of coral here. You can tell we're much higher up because the fish look tiny (the specks near the top).
It was cloudy yesterday morning and even rained a bit. (We were in the water, though, so it didn't bother us!) The cloudiness was perfect because my sunburn didn't get any worse; however, the lack of sunshine made the photos look even bluer than usual.

Last night we had dinner at Rolandi's, an Italian restaurant. Really cool place. It's located right on the water, and we arrived just after sunset. The ambiance was perfect -- kind of casually romantic. And the food was good, too!
Funny story about the restaurant: We were seated right next to the water. After it got dark, Dave pointed out into the water and asked me what the light was. I thought he was hallucinating at first, but then I saw it too. About 20-30 feet out from the shore there was a light that appeared to be coming from underwater. It didn't shine constantly and there didn't appear to be any sort of pattern to when it did and didn't shine. Well, right before we left for dinner, Dave had been reading and had just come to a point in the book where there was an alien that lived in some water. I teased him that the light must be the alien! Then I asked the waiter, and he said it was nighttime scuba divers, which totally explains why the lights were moving and only shining up once in awhile.

I bet you'll never guess what we did today... snorkeled! We went to a beach bar that's known for great snorkeling. We had stopped there last year, but the waves were too rough to swim that day. Today, however, was perfect. Here are photos of today's snorkel spot -- gorgeous!
And my Michael Phelps look-alike!
The fish were plentiful here and, like usual, we saw some cool fish.
Once again, I saw some fish for the very first time. One was this black fish with a bright yellow tail and blue shimmery polka dots on its top.
Another was this blue fish on the left with the different colored blue stripes. This one was pretty large too.
But the star of today's snorkeling adventure was this frickin' huge barracuda that Dave almost swam right over! It was at least three feet long, maybe closer to four! Yikes!
Funny story about the barracuda: there were other folks snorkeling at the beach bar, and a little boy (about 8 years old) saw the barracuda, too. He popped up to the surface and yelled, "Dad! Come here! I found a huge pike!" Ha ha. Not quite. Maybe if he were snorkeling in a lake! We decided to let his dad be the one to tell him what he was really looking at.

Tonight we let our inner Gringo out and ate some typical US American food at Rock 'n Java. We actually went here twice today -- once in the early afternoon and then for dinner. We had the same waiter each time and Dave got a peanut butter milkshake both times!