Obligatory gorgeous beach photos!

It was surprisingly worthwhile to get on an excursion to the beach given the PERMANENT RIP CURRENT, SWIM AND DIE signs at the hotel beach.  People swam anyway.  I might have tested it if I had my boogie board with me but baggage fees prevented the presence of my emergency flotation device.  I splashed around about knee-deep on Condado beach at the hotel but the real swimming came with the Elegant Tours trip to Culebra island.

We took a speedy catamaran crewed by rum-touting pirates.  I heard from guests on other tours that sometimes they spotted whales.  No such luck but I did see a school of silver fishies hopping through the wake.  While travelling, we got lunch but when our guides brought out the sandwich fixings a horde of flies came out of nowhere and never left!  We were in the middle of the ocean, where did they come from?!  

The first stop brought us to a reef with a gorgeous view of the surrounding islands.  We snorkled around humongous brain and fan coral.  I expected it to be more colorful but it was all grey-yellow or brown.  When I was little, we went to Hawaii and snorkled by a sunken volcano crater–I remember the fish being much bigger and more colorful (and I saw an eel!) but I may just have been a lot smaller in comparison!  

I did see little iridescent blue fish and rainbow fish.  Wish I had gotten my hands on the reef chart so I could name them!  The yellow ones swam right up to my mask, real friendly!  I didn't notice the jellyfish at first but they were all over–very tiny and floating near the surface whereas I was usually looking straight down.  I really want to swim with sea turtles but I didn't see any.  It's the Ninja Turtle geek in me.  I got a sea turtle shirt later on but I feel like poser because I didn't actually see any.

Next we sailed to warmer waters off the coast of Culebra island.  Unfortunately, people have walked on the coral and killed a lot of it so there was less to see.  But we did get the opportunity to swim from the boat to Flamenco Beach which is supposed to be one of the top three most beautiful beaches in the world.  I haven't seen enough to make any judgments but I enjoyed the warm water varying in shades from clear to aqua to deep azure.  Sinking into super soft sand…forgive the alliteration…was also awesome.  Better than a spa ;)

I should have asked what the bridge was for…maybe an ancient dock?

Wish I had all day here…or all year….or forever (:  (Well, my boogie board would require more waves)