Akumal Bay - Swimming with Turtles

Having heard you could see turtles at Akumal Bay, we decided to pack up our snorkling gear and make the trip down coast.

The reef is quite far out at Akumal, and having snorkeled for about 45 minutes out and not seen much but a few pretty fish and lots of sea cucumbers, we were giving up hope of seeing the turtles, assuming it was the wrong time of day or bad luck.

But as we headed back in, swimming over the miles of sea grass, Pete spotted a turtle and called me over! Very exciting. We couldn't believe how big they were, I got quite a shock when he swam right under me legs.

In the end we saw three different turtles. They were happy to be watched from a distance, simply grazing along, swimming up for air every so often, accompanied by various fish cleaning their shells. I think we were only about half a mile out when we saw them, the water was pretty shallow for a long way out.

Out of 8 different types of turtles, 7 can be seen in Mexico's waters. The most common at Akumal are the Green Turtle and the Loggerhead Turtle. The stars of these films and pictures are green turtles (I think!). Pete has down a sterling Attenborough filming job!

They also have a great conservation effort for the reef and turtles at Akumal run by volunteers (CEA) and the beach is very quiet, which is probably why the turtles are still there. All in all, an amazing experience.