Saturday Snorkel Trip

On Saturday we had our last Spring Children's Club Program. Evidently, everyone decided this was the event they were all going to come to. We planned for 20 children. We had 30 show up.

This program was a snorkel lesson and trip to the Cruise Center historical snorkeling park. This is another one of the successes here. The snorkel park is a project worked out between the museum, the cruise center, and the DECR to protect some large underwater artifacts that have been found or recovered in the last couple of years. The artifacts have been moved to an area where they can be protected and monitored. They can also be seen by countless cruise tourists.

Oasis Divers assisted us during the Saturday program. We went down to Oasis South Base and picked up 15 sets of gear. We walked the few hundred yards down to the cruise center. The boys all put gear on, had a snorkel lesson and then went on a 20 minute swim around the cruise center swim area.

The girls went second. It is not typical for kids here to swim. In fact, I think the museum programs are probably the only organized lesson there is on the island to try. Out of the 30 children we had, eleven actually were able to snorkel through the park.

While staff took most of the kids back to Oasis for a cookout on their beach deck, I took the eleven snorkelers back into the water for another 20 minute swim. This was cool as we came across very, very large barracuda sitting very shallow in the water. I tried to point it out so that everyone could see it. But it wasn't a problem. When I stuck my head out of the water we had eleven snorkelers all bunched up swimming on top of one another.