Swimming With the Turtles in Barbados

This morning our boat made it's first stop and we docked in Bridgetown, Barbados. Ryan and I had signed up to go swimming with sea turtles for the morning. I was pretty excited to get off the boat and see these turtles.
We made our way to the shuttle bus that was going to take us to our boat and we quickly made new friends. These two friendly sister in laws were cruising with their mother (whom they left on the boat) and were from New Jersey. We could have listened to their accents all day, they were the perfect start to our day.
Once everyone was on the boat we were off and heading towards turtles and beaches. While we listened to our funny tour guides tease each other in their caribbean accents we made some more new friends, our favourites being the couple from Britain. Oh wow, they were "brilliant." They were on their second consecutive cruise on the Summit and have pretty much travelled all over the world. I loved hearing about the places they had been and what they did with their time there.
After a bit the boat started to really slow down and I saw a turtle poke its head out of the water and we got to jump in.
It was about at this point that I realized that I've been really spoiled as far as beaches and water goes because this water was FREEZING. I could not get the goose bumps to go away and apparently the water really wasn't that cold.

Our guides brought out some dead minnows which attracted the turtles like crazy. There were quite a few of us all in the water together but I didn't really mind. There were enough turtles that everyone got to feel them a few times and floated away from the groupie it was very peaceful. Unfortunately our friend Indiana (we nicknamed our friends by where they were from) witnessed me accidentally boot kick one while I was treading water but in my defence he really snuck up on me and I had no idea the turtle was there.

After we swam with the turtles we spent some time at the beach. Ryan and I walked down quite a while before turning back towards the boat. Ryan stayed on the beach for a little while making friends with some dude selling fresh Aloe Vera for people with sun burns. One guy on our boat claimed that he bought Aloe from the guy a few years ago when his bald head got badly burned the last time they were at that exact beach and that Ryan's new friend remembered him and his head. Um, sure.

We got back to the cruise ship in time for a nice buffet lunch before we wandered out to explore the city. We walked around and explored a bit but I could sadly tell I was pretty crispy. For whatever reason my 75spf did not do the trick earlier while out on the water and I had promised myself I would not get burned the first day. I failed.
Later on the boat we saw our New Jersey friends from a distance as they located their mother on the outdoor patio enjoying the live music and warm weather in her awesome motorized scooter. When I get old and walking is hard I really hope my kids hook me up with one of those!