Dolphins, Stingrays and Exotic Sea Creatures

Yesterday we spent the day at Dolphin Discovery, where we all swam with dolphins. Our dolphin's name was Darwin and it did everything from wave at us to pushing me on a boogey board, kissing and dancing with me and swimming with it. They are so amazing!! Also, while waiting for our dolphin session to start, one of the guys that worked there was holding a small ball in his hands, until I looked closer and it was a puffer fish!!! I was so excited haha They're so cool but too bad I didn't have my camera with! I guess I'll just have to go to the pet store and buy one myself.... :)

Today our day was spent out on the boat, Miss Jackie on Capt. Marven's tours. There were four stops along the way; the first being diving for conch shells. It was really cool because we were in the middle of the ocean and snorkeled in a spot to look for these shells. If we found one, we were able to dive down and pick it up, if it was alive. You're able to tell if the conch is alive by the pink color on the inside of the shell, plus you can see a little bit of the animal in it.

Second stop was snorkeling at the coral reef gardens. There, we saw three stingrays and a ton of different kinds of fish and coral. It was beautiful.

Third stop was Stingray City. The stingrays are basically like cats. They brush up against you to make friends and if you have fish in your hands, they suction it out of your hand like a vacuum. I think one stingray suctione my whole hand in once; it was quite the experience!! They were everyyywhere!

The last stop was at a little tiki bar where the captain of the boat cooked up some lunch for us. We had some conch (the ones we caught diving for) along with fish, chicken, rice and salad and it was delicious! I don't think we could've asked for a better day!! As always, here are some pictures to summarize my day :)

While snorkeling, our guide snapped at the stingray, swam closer to it and just picked it up and brought it to the surface for me to hold. This one was named "Frisbee" because it didn't have a stinger.

Here is another stingray at Stingray City.

Diving for conch at the coral reef gardens.

One of the 10 conch shells we got on the boat and this one was mine! (The captain of the boat said it was the most beautiful one on the boat and that made sense since I was beautiful myself....hahahaha I guess I could've scored a date while I'm here.)

This is what the conch animal looks like...the two black dots on the front are its eyes.

And the shell they come from...the guides crack the hole on the side to get the conch out of the shell.

After they get the conch out, one of the guides scraped all the extra moss off the shell to make it beautiful!

This picture is all out of focus, and that's why I love it so much.