Caribbean Cruise - Day 3 (Cozumel)

If you missed any of the other installments, you can find them here:

Day 1 - Boarding in Galveston
The Diet Soda Debacle
Day 2 - At sea

---------------------------------------------------------

Day 3 (Cozumel)

We decided to play a game with our room attendant.  He left us a towel dog watching cartoons, so the next morning we left the towel dog sleeping in the bed with a "Do Not Distub" sign:

Then we headed ashore in Cozumel, Mexico.  Outside the port we got in line for a taxi and got a ride to Chankanaab National Park.

First we watched the sea lion show:

We each got a kiss on the cheek from a sea lion too!  It was decidedly un-liability-paranoid-American the way they let us walk out across a slippery walkway to the stage and be right next to the animals like that.  But I don't have a photo because the only photo they allow is the one they took that they want you to pay an arm and a leg for.  I decided my memory of the event would just have to suffice.

We walked around some gardens and archaeological replicas, then went on a short tour of their dolphin encounter area.  Again, no photos allowed but here is a shot of one of the dolphins that I took before we went out on the tour:

The cutest part was the baby dolphin!  It was about 2 months old.  But mostly we got to watch other people (who I'm pretty sure must have had to leave their first born child as payment) get in the water and play with the dolphins.  It was actually pretty fun even to just watch.  Also on the tour were a couple of manatees.   Very cool.

After lunch on the beach, we rented some snorkel gear.

Warning:  From here on out, the photos are going to get even crappier.  Already we had only taken the point and shoot off the ship with us, but now the point and shoot is in a waterproof bag.

Here is a view from where we snorkeled of the cruise ships in the distance:

Here we are rockin' the snorkel gear:

This is me, G, in case you couldn't tell.

And this is M, in case you couldn't tell.

The snorkeling was gorgeous:

This was probably the clearest photo we got.  They just go downhill from here, sorry.  It was a partially overcast day, so most of the time there just wasn't enough light.

This is the other clear-ish shot.

Everywhere we went were a lot of these sergeant majors:

They were totally not afraid and would often swim along with us.  More than once they got so close we would end up bumping into them.

And there was totally a school of... something:

This photo is the best I could get. (If you saw the others, you'd think this one was pretty good.)

And then just when we felt like we'd pretty much seen everything and were going to head in, we saw an eagle ray:

It was a very fun day.

And in case we had so much fun that we lost track of the days, never fear!  The elevators back on the ship were always there to remind us of the day of the week:

The outside of the elevators were pretty cool too:

We finished the evening with some time in one of the hot tubs!