#TurtleDude

Snorkel firmly placed on my face and stinger suit baggily hanging from my body I hop into the cold water again for snorkel number two.
I put my face in the water and allowed my breathing through my snorkel to equalise. I was soon shaken from my calm breathing as a tiny jelly fish with a neon purple glow floated past me! I knew it was unlikely to sting me but I've seen Finding Nemo and wasn't taking any chances!

Two minutes in and we hear the shout of a fellow snorkeler, "turtle, turtle, turtle!" She pointed to where the turtle was under the water allowing me to race to the area. I followed her finger and submerged my face again. Right beneath me floated a turtle, I worried as I realised I was on top of him and he might feel trapped with me blocking his gateway to air so I swam a bit further out to admire him from a bigger distance. Soon after, he decided that we were cramping his style and he swam off.

The reef there was even more beautiful than the one we had seen previously. The corals were bigger and more vibrant, we also saw more fish. Again I heard it, "turtle, turtle, turtle!" This time I was really close to the girl and only had to swim ten paces before the turtle came into view. Being one of the first ones there I had more time to enjoy watching the turtle uninterrupted by arms and legs kicking beside me. He was truly incredible, much bigger than the first one and just as cute! He chomped uninterested in us on the coral as go pros snapped their shots of him.

After he moved on, I was desperate to see a shark but they very rarely are spotted in those reefs. "Shark, shark!" I knew as I was swimming that I had probably missed it as sharks are much quicker than their turtle neighbours. Sure enough, he was gone. This happened a further two times before we had to give up and board the speed boat to take us back to the Avatar.

Whilst waiting for the next snorkel destination a little head popped up out of the water, not too far from the boat a huge loggerhead turtle had come up for air. We could see his size in the water and watched him dipping in and out of the sea until he vanished from sight.

We had our last snorkel about an hour later and everyone felt slightly less enthusiastic as we were enjoying the now warm and dry wetsuits heating us up. This time we were swimming in deeper water with less variety of fish but much bigger beasts. The crew threw bread out of the speed boat to attract the fish to the surface and they excitedly bobbed on the water's surface and fought each other over the soggy bread. Every now and again a huge fish would barge through the crowd and take a bite.

Unfortunately with bread comes birds and it wasn't long before sea gulls were swarming above the water to get their share of the food. It was at this point that I decided to look at the fish slightly further away. The biggest was a black fish that Chelsea was desperately pointing at to help me to see him (she had tried to show me one before but I missed it completely). She needn't have bothered because his huge body glided past me followed by some blue fish with bright yellow tails.

Having seen the species that area had to offer, we slowly made our way back to the boat and warmed ourselves with a hot cup of tea overlooking the horizon.

We finished the day with a sundowner on a nearby beach. The sun went down over the water as we drank our cups of warm goon and watched the sun setting over what had been a pretty perfect day.