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Wow, can you believe it’s taken me 3 weeks to recap a 8 day vacation??  Well, life gets busy ‘ya know.  Moving right along, here is part 3 of my Punta Cana vacation adventure.  And then I’ll get back to writing about some marathon training, since I’m getting down to a 3 week deadline (eeek!).

Another excursion we booked was an afternoon of snorkeling.  It was advertised as going out on a catamaran, snorkeling in the ocean, stingrays and sharks, and ending with a short visit at the lovely sandbar where you can enjoy a drink.  Well, it was all of those things – and more!  The “more” part was a lot more action than what we had imagined.  When the boat was pulling up to let off the previous passengers, it looked a lot like a “party boat” with a lot of drinking and loud music.  My daughter took one look at it and said “Mom, I don’t want to go on that boat!”.

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Well, too bad because that’s the trip we booked!  It was very interesting being 4 of only 6 English speaking people on the boat.  Lots and lots of Spanish music, and jokes (we think) and laughs and we just smiled and nodded, as polite foreigners do 🙂

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The snorkeling area was a tad crowded, but it still offered us a great view of the fish underneath and we got to stay out snorkeling twice as long as everyone else… because you know, we don’t speak Spanish so we don’t know if they were calling us back in or not!

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After the snorkeling, we docked at a floating pen where they kept the stingrays and sharks.  I loved seeing the stingrays. They are such peaceful creatures.  The sharks were a pretty good size.  We held each of them.  I got to put my arms around the shark and hold him in the middle!  The stingrays shimmyed across our hands as we tried to “hold them like a pizza”.  Sneaky stingrays!

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Stingrays float across the bottom of the ocean when they swim. So beautiful!

Unfortunately we did not buy the pictures of us holding the stingrays and sharks, because he wanted $60.  But here is a picture from back in 2009 when we paid some guy $10 to get a picture of us holding a shark in Cozumel, Mexico!  Good times.  The shark each one of us held in Punta Cana was that big, and it’s tail was flipping all over the place!

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OMG, my son is only 4 years old! Are we really letting him hold a shark? As you can tell, he was pretty excited about it all…

Next up was the sandbar.  We all got to hang out in the water and enjoy some tropical drinks.  Oh, and for some reason they blew up a big floaty ball and a girl tried to stand up in it!  Epic fail, but quite entertaining.

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In the end, it was an enjoyable excursion, even though it was a rowdy crowd.

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I’ll probably have one more post with more pictures soon.  So many good memories from this trip!!

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Q:  If given the chance, would you hold or swim with sharks?

My husband and I went on a shark dive in the Bahamas.  The shark’s fins brushed against us while they were feeding them!  They were beautiful to watch, but we dare not touch them 🙂

Q: Do you enjoy snorkeling or scuba diving?

I’ll be honest, scuba diving kind of freaks me out (I get claustrophobic!), but I try my hardest not to let that get to me.

Q: Do you speak any languages other than English?

I probably should have taken Spanish in high school instead of French!

 

 

4 thoughts on “Punta Cana – part 3 – snorkeling!”
  1. Looks like fun! I have never been scuba diving or snorkeling. Paul has gone snorkeling and he said it was awesome. If he and I ever go somewhere tropical I am sure we will do it! I do not think I want to swim with sharks though!
    Megan @ Meg Go Run recently posted…Weekend Wrap Up!My Profile

  2. Hey, I’ll be your Spanish interpreter on your next trip there! Believe me, the jokes ARE funny on the booze cruises! 😉 I think about the Spanish language everyday….always translating in my head. The kids groan and roll their eyes when I babble on to them in Spanish!

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