#1229 snorkeling and whale sharks

View of Cancun from Garrafon de Castilla

MT likes to snorkel. He wanted to snorkel almost every day we were on Isla Mujeres, so the first Sunday we were on the island, he asked around to some of the other people at Nautibeach and found out that some of the easiest snorkeling to do was from Garrafon.

The Garrafon parks are located on the southern end of the island, so we took a taxi. Since it was our first full day on the island, it was a good way to see the place and kind of get the lay of the land.

It turns out that there are two Garrafon areas. One is a big park with several things to do, including a zip line over the water. The cost is around $50US per person. The other place is much smaller, probably more of a locals place, and the cost to get in was $5US per person. Since T and I were not going to swim or snorkel and since we did not want to do the zip line, we took the advice of our cab driver and went to the smaller park, Garrafon de Castilla.

The water was clear and there was a small, but rocky, beach. T and I went up on the overlook and sat at a table under an umbrella and had something to drink while MT went snorkeling.

 

 

This is pretty much the face T made the whole week

I enjoyed sitting there chatting with T. I think I read a little and just enjoyed the scenery and my cold cerveza. We watched the iguanas walk around, too. One came kind of close and T froze like a statue. When I got up to look at the lizard, T told me to sit down quietly and not make eye contact with the creature. I'm pretty sure the iguanas didn't want to have anything to do with us.

When MT was done with his swim, we had lunch at the restaurant there. I had chicken nachos. They were not delicious. They used that liquid-y cheez product and what looked like the liquid from black beans. They just weren't very good, but I was pretty hungry, so we ate the chips with the pico de gallo that came with it. MT and T both had shrimp tacos. MT thought they were ok. T just ate the shrimp. At least the beer was cold.

After eating, MT decided to take one more quick swim. No, he did not wait the recommended amount of time after eating and cramped up a little. But before that happened, he was fairly happy:

 

Garrafon de Castilla is basically a beginner's snorkeling area where it seems like people take their kids to get them used to being in the water. MT said he saw some fish, but it wasn't great. He said there were a couple of nice pieces of coral out there, but most of it looked like it was dead or dying. I didn't see any fish when I was standing on this pier where MT is sitting. But the water looked nice.

That's MT closest to the camera with his hands on his back.

That's what we did our first afternoon on the island. We did not go back to either Garrafon park, but MT did get to do more snorkeling during the week. He really liked the snorkeling by the lighthouse out in the bay; he went there twice. He also had a chance to snorkel at the underwater museum near Manchones reef. MT said the statues were really too deep to see while snorkeling and thought it would be better for a SCUBA dive.

MT also did go swimming with the whale sharks! I did not go with him because the cost was pretty high for a boat ride. MT took the camera, but it's pretty tough to get a photo of a whale shark from the boat. Here's the best one he got:

Click on the pic to enlarge; took at the center and you'll see a big object with spots. That's part of a whale shark.

MT said he probably saw six or eight whale sharks and the largest one was about 36' long (almost 11 meters) and the tail was as tall as he is (about 5'10" or 1.8 meters). He said the mouth, which was always open, taking in krill, was about three or four feet across (1.2 meters).

It took about 45 minutes to get from the island to the area where the whale sharks were. The captain would try to anticipate the direction the whale sharks would go, then he would yell "Jump!" and two people would get in the water. (Only two people per boat were allowed to be in the water at one time, but there were lots of boats out there!) MT said when he was told to jump, he jumped and kicked as hard as he could to catch up with shark. He said it was one of the coolest things he has ever done. He told me the creatures were beautiful; that their spots glowed under the water and they were just magnificent.

He also said that he was covered in krill when he got out of the water. He said some of the ladies had the tiny creatures in their hair. Ew.

So that takes care of the snorkeling and whale shark adventure. I know that MT really likes to do those things and I also know that he would like it if T or I would do those things with him, but we are not inclined to do that. I like to hear his stories, though!