Our Little Trip To Paradise – Snorkeling

On our last day on St. Maarten, we went snorkeling on a reef at the small uninhabited island of Prickly Pear, about a 17 mile boat ride from the resort. 

I was afraid to take my camera, so we took the waterproof camera Pat had bought but without the directions for using.  As it turned out the photo button was on the left (opposite of my camera) and the video button was on the right.  As a result I took one photo and made several useless videos by accident.  

While no one lives on the island, there is a small beach bar and a restaurant there to serve the snorkeling tours that come in almost daily as well as other visitors.  They generate power with solar panels, cook with propane and charcoal, and transport everything in by boat from Anguilla, a few miles away.

Here is a shot of Kathy and it will give you a sense of how pretty the beach and lagoon were.  I had one usable video but couldn't fiqure out how to post it.

This is a shot from the web - no blow up for this one.

And from Google Earth.  The dark areas in the water at the top of the shot are the reefs and the roof just left of the pond is the restaurant.

I didn’t get any meal shots, but lunch was provided as part of our tour and we had a choice of three grilled meats - chicken, baby back ribs, and mahi-mahi (my choice of course) - served with rice, fried potatoes, slaw, and salad.  My fish was cooked perfectly – flakey but still shiny on the inside - and the potatoes were very good,  The slaw and salad were lightly but nicely dressed, but the rice had a flavor that was just okay for all of us, however with a healthy dose of Caribbean Hot Sauce it was pretty good.

The reef had been heavily damaged by a hurricane(s) and the live coral was just coming back, but we did see some beautiful fish, however, not as many as on a fully developed reef.  Still a very nice trip though.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Mediterranean Salad Ala Chef Dennis & Blogger party

Two years ago:  Kicked Up Scramble For Breakfast

Larry