Bermuda Snorkeling- Swimming with the Fishes

 

My previous post, “Five Things to Love about Bermuda,” gives a detailed account of our amazing 40th wedding anniversary trip to the island paradise. In this piece, I want to focus on our snorkeling activities. In preparation, we dug our masks and snorkels out of storage (tested them at our neighborhood pool), bought fins and a duffle bag to carry the gear and other things. We ended up only trying the fins once, finding them very awkward on the beach and not really beneficial since we didn't go out too far in the ocean. 

Tobacco Bay in St. George’s, shown in these two photos, was one of several beaches we visited during our July 12-19 vacation. 

Alesia points out fish she saw at Tobacco Bay. I followed her cue and shot the video shown next.

My GoPro Hero Black 8 took many high-quality video and still shots. The attachable yellow handle that floats works great while I swam and looked for fish. I kept the strap around my wrist to avoid the camera getting away from me. I’m not the strongest swimmer, so I felt safer wearing an inflatable vest, especially as we noticed how quickly the water could get very deep. 

Alesia is a great swimmer and didn’t need a floatie. 

The GoPro photograph quality is outstanding, in my opinion. That’s Alesia in the water at Chaplin Bay. 

From the gorgeous turquoise water, you can see the house where we stayed. It’s the large white house in the middle. We had the first-floor corner room. The Airbnb was very comfortable with great ocean views and access to Pokiok Beach, a small beach you see along the right side of this image. Pokiok is a hidden gem with its cozy beach and good snorkeling. 

Even selfies are possible with the GoPro! This was at Pokiok Beach, which was close to our Airbnb at Cove House. You can see the large white house over my right shoulder and the beach over my left side. Here are several underwater captures. We saw a nice variety of fish. I saw an eel but didn’t get an image of it, unfortunately. 

Fish name: Sergeant or Sergeant Major (because of the stripes) 

Blue Tang (or maybe Bermuda Chub) and Minnows

Not sure of this type

More Sergeant Majors

Bluehead Wrasse

Bluehead Wrasse and possibly a Bermuda Chub

Not sure of this type but I'll keep looking to ID 

I saved the best for last! Here’s a four-minute compilation of my best underwater video clips. I produced it using CapCut.  and have it on my YouTube channel. 

Eternal thanks and love to Alesia for this fantastic 40th wedding anniversary adventure!