Swimming with the Turtles

It's been a very windy day here, the kind of wind that catches the door of your car when you try to get out and slams it into the car parked next to you.  It was also very icy this morning, causing Paul to slide off his bike twice on the way down to school.  The wind actually pushed me across a patch of icy street and I had to grab onto my car to stop my forward momentum.  

Apparently it was this windy on Christmas Day.  So glad we missed it. 

But the cold is gone and our warm temperatures coupled with the bright sun is melting all the snow we got last Wednesday and Thursday.  Before we say goodbye to the beautiful snow, here's a few photos from a hike we took on Friday. 

This is how a trail looks when it's still snow packed.

It's hard to remember that we were in the islands so recently.  It was only two weeks ago that we were swimming with the turtles.   I didn't tell you about that, did I?  Well, it's about time I did!

On Christmas we chartered a boat and a captain and went to several snorkeling sites.  One was Turtle Cove, a National Wildlife Refuge that is a breeding ground and sanctuary for turtles.  Here's Paul and me snorkeling, looking down at the seagrass that feeds the many turtles that hang out in this area.   You peer closely at the sand and seagrass to spot a turtle munching away and then you follow him as he swims up to the surface for air.

Here's a turtle that has come up for air.  They aren't scared of people and would come up quite close to us.  This one looks like a baby; there were many really large ones as well.

And here's a photo that Paul took showing a turtle submerging.

We were there for about and hour and saw turtles that whole time. Smiles all around!

Turtle Cove is visited by many tourists who sign on to day trips from sailboats and catamarans at St. Thomas.  Apparently it is often quite crowded with people, but since it was Christmas Day we pretty much had the place to ourselves, which made it even more wonderful.

Paul made a video of the trip for us as a Christmas gift but I think he's too shy to let me post it here.  So I found this short video on YouTube that just shows Turtle Cove has some good footage of the turtles.