Snorkel tour recommendations?

[cheffip]

I've seen a number of recommendations on this forum for Patouche and his tours sound great but they all seem to be full-day tours with lunch and are fairly expensive. Does anyone have recommendations for an operator who does a half-day boat/snorkel trips or am I better off with one of the ship's snorkel excursions?

[CaribbeanBound]

How about just doing it on your own? Unless you are a really serious snorkler, consider Brewer's Bay...

 

On our third trip to Tortola, we stayed on the island and set our sights on Brewer's Bay. TTaxi service here is on a "per person" basis. Brewers Bay costs $6.00 per person each way for parties of 4 or more. (For the curious, it's also $6.00 per person to beautiful Cane Garden Bay, heavily populated with cruise passengers). What a way to end our cruise! There were less than a dozen folks at Brewers Bay when we arrived at 9am and about 50 when we left at 1pm. This is a spectacularly beautiful bay with awesome snorkeling to the left of the bay. We saw a number our variety of fish including Tarpon (about 4 feet in length), box fish, trigger fish, loads of colorful parrot fish, thousands of interesting little reef dwellers and various coral formations. It was impressive to see large schools of fish descend across the reef devouring whatever morsels they enjoy and moving on to the next like locusts in a field. If you aren't into snorkeling, lay back and watch the dozen or so pelicans plunge into the ocean for fish all day long. They would dive within a couple feet of a snorkeler --- neither bothering the other. Beach chairs can be rented for $5 (loungers) or $3 (chairs) but we didn't see any umbrellas. There is plenty of shade on the left side of the beach (snorkeling side) in front of Nicole's Bar. Nicole's Bar offers mixed drinks and a collection of $3 bottled beer as well as a grill ($6 for a cheeseburger or $8 for shrimp and fries).

 

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