Turtle Cave and Tunnels Beach Snorkeling

 One of the food truck guys was really chatty.  He gave us this list of his recommended things but the top one was Turtle Cave.  He gave us good directions on where to park and how to get there.  Again, it was quite adventurous.  It's a short little trail but incredibly steep.  There is a rope for the worst of it. But I can imagine on a rainy day it would be nearly impossible to get up it. (Sherri told me her story of finding a few people frantically trying to get out but couldn't because they didn't have the upper body strength.  Her husband helped them and they took off without looking back.)  It was worth it though because it was really cool.

It was also really pretty!!

I guess the turtles are always there.  We wanted to walk past to the other side, the cave had two openings and we wanted to see the other side.  But I was nervous to walk too close to the turtles.  I didn't want to scare them and I didn't want them to snap at us, lol.  So that's when we climbed along the rocks.

 

But this side was really deep and I didn't want to swim with my phone and there wasn't that much to see anyway.  But I loved the blue water with the black rock and the reef and stuff.

We rented snorkeling gear for the day and headed to one of the best snorkeling beaches on the island, Tunnels Beach.  The parking was not good.  We had to wait around for a bit for someone to leave because there's really just this short road you can park on and you can't park on the main road or you would get a ticket (as evidenced by the ticketed cars we saw there).  But we eventually made it and it was worth it because it was a cool beach with the mountains!  And the snorkeling was indeed amazing.  I didn't take pictures in the water because it's not easy and it never shows how cool it is so you'll have to take my word for it.  But it was really fun.  Sadie and spent a lot of time out there.  Dylan decided to go swimming with a boogie board and got pretty far out.  The water was calm by the shore because it's a little bay but he was getting far out.  Some local surfers asked me if he belonged to me and if he could swim.  I was like, I mean yeah... I waved him in and he started making his way but the surfers were nervous and one of them paddled his board out to him.  Dylan felt like he was fine but the guy was like, "can you swim back, show me." So Dylan started swimming with his boogie board and the guys was like, "just hold onto my board..." and he pulled him in.  It didn't seem like he was ever in any danger but the locals know the water and I'm glad they were kind enough to be concerned and offer help.  I think my kids are used to the Florida waves and Florida waves are the wussiest of all the waves.

Both Turtle Cave and Tunnels Beach were way up north so we did those together.  We wanted to do Queen's Bath but heard it was closed and Julie tried to go with her family and couldn't get there.  It's not winter anymore but it's still not summer.  And my kids were ready to head back to chill and get food after those two adventures.