Just back/Turtles on your own....EASY TO DO

[skolega]

My husband and I just got back from Crown Princess. Our first stop was Barbados. We had decided when we got off the ship that we would grab a cab. We told our driver to take us to the Blue Monkey restaurant/beach and he charged us 20.00 total. When we got there, he escorted us through the restaurant and set us up with his friend to get us some chairs and an umbrella for the day at a cost of 15.00/day. The beach is beautiful. About 50-75 yards from the shore you can see where all the catamarans/day sails come to swim with the turtles. It can get very crowded out there at times. We waited for what we thought was the best time to begin our swim out from the beach. We decided to go when there was 2 or 3 small boats with small amounts of people on them. The swim out there was easy to do but we are good swimmers. If you are not a great swimmer, what I would do is bring in your beach bag a small inflatable air mattress, blow it up, and then leave it behind after you are done. We got to the turtle area and just waited. Don't use your fins in this area, it scares the turtles. The boats were throwing fish in the water for them. The turtles were swimming all around us. They will bump up against you and swim right toward your face. They are amazing. You can rub their backs and touch them as much as you want. They don't like to be grabbed. We stayed out with them for about 30-45 minutes. The water was a little stirred up on the day we were there but it was still an amazing thing to do. After we finished with the turtles, we swam back to shore. The swim in is a little harder than going out but then again we had been in the water for quite a while and were getting tired. We then ate lunch at the Blue Monkey. We wanted to eat the local flying fish sandwich which was not on the menu. They were happy to fix us one. The cost was 13.00 dollars. After more beach time, our taxi driver picked us up at our appointed time and took us into town for some shopping. The cab fare back was the same 20.00. We shopped downtown Bridgetown and then walked back to the ship (about 1 mile walk). It was a great, inexpensive day in Barbados.

And so EASY to do. Any questions, just ask.