Best way to see a Sea Turtle?

[gtexan]

I have gone snorkeling many times throughout the Caribbean, and while people in my group ALWAYS see turtles, Ive NEVER seen one :confused:

 

 

So, Ive heard Barbados is famous for sea turtles, and am wondering what the best way to see some would be.

 

I don't particularly want to go to a sea turtle park and see a bunch in non-native habitat, but if theres a place where there are almost always turtles around, I'd love to see them.

 

Im going to be in Barbados in early April

 

Thanks!

[cetcet]

Have you found out where u can see sea turtles? We, also will on the cruise in April :) Please let me know if you do find out!

 

Thank you

[LifesaBanquet]

If you want to take a tour Glory Tours offer several that include swimming with the Sea Turtles.

http://www.glorytours.org/

[RN7997]

Glort tours takes you out on a glass bottom boat. I think you can do it withi a land tour or by itself. If you are looking for a full fun day I suggest looking into what we are doing this March....a Catamaran day with Silvermoon Charters (Ocean Adventures is their other name). Google them online. They get great reviews.....we are so excited about that day. They have 2 boat options for about 90.00 you can go on a larger boat...I believe its 55ft?? Not sure, but htey are well known for NOT packing their boats. That boat will have no more then 24 people on it. They have another for 110.00 I think it was......the one we chose....its a 45ft cat and they will only take 12 on it. These are luxury and its known to be a 5 star day!! Luch is prepared and served on the cat for you, drinks are included, snorkle gear and they get you right at the dock so no transportation in addition is needed. You get to snorkle/swim with the turtles this day as well as other stops for snorkling and swimming. Check them out. SOrry if any of my numbers are off at all...if they are they are VERY close...Im going off memory.

[sddsddean]

When we were there on 26th Dec, as we were walking back to the ship, we hopped up on top of the sea wall suurounding the harbour and about 20' away was a 4' long turtle! You can just see its head in the middle of this photo.

 

Simon

[princessmargaret]

I also heartily recommend Silvermoon catamarans. We went on the smaller cat with only twelve people at the beginning of February. Wow, the luxury of space. Imagine skimming over the ocean with the whole trampoline to yourself! For whatever reason everyone was seeking shade that day.

 

For the turtles, you will anchor with other boats just off the beach. One of the Silvermoon staff gets into the water with you and has food for the turtles. Before you know it, you look down and bam! It's a turtle right below you. Unfortunately I got out too early. Toward the end, there was a "baby" turtle along with the others. He was about a third of the size of the adults.

 

The other snorkeling site with a modern ship wreck was great. My husband even rediscovered his love of snorkeling there. Lots of fish.

 

The food is good with the macaroni pie being a great twist on mac and cheese. The drinks are free flowing without it being a "party boat."

 

You do have to take a jitney from outside the terminal to the sailboat dock, but that is a short ride and included in the price. And they will wait for you if your ship is delayed. We were on the Ruby Princess and were last to arrive out of four ships in Barbados. We had what was at least a half hour delay waiting for the customs officials to clear the ship. Having arranged this non-ship tour, I was having a cow, but it was not a problem. They know it is not your fault.

[cruiserbryce]

not probably the recommended way to be sure to see them but we saw them just in the harbor:D

[scraphappylady]

Ditto what princessmargaret said. Definitely Silver Moon, with the 12 passenger catamaran. We came in on Victory, in January, and it was the best excursion of our whole trip, IMO.

 

I have a link to my review that gives the entire day in detail, but if you don't want to read it all, here's something to temp you with.

 

[greenp]

Hi

Last year, late March we visited Barbados for the 1st time. We took a taxi from the pier heading for the beach, the taxi driver wanted to take us to what he called blue monkey beach recomending this was a great beach. We ended up at his brothers bar on the beach called the blue monkey beach bar !! OK I thought we had been had. The really great thing about this trip you could swim from the shore and yes swim with turtles, the turtle trip boats would come with the paying guest to see the same turtles Wow what a fantastic time. The blue monkey has a web site and is within walking distance of Sandy Lane Hotel, if you need to check it out. Highly recommend swimming with the turtles. Enjoy. Iam back in March 2010

[SDCruiser2]

We just returned from cruising on the NCL Dawn.

 

We pre-arranged a snorkel Trip with Thriller Ocean Tours with Stephen in Barbados. It was absolutley amazing. Probably the best excursion we have ever had. We took a short Taxi Ride to meet him right on the dock... payed our $$ and loaded up into a 3 prop Cigar type boat. They took us to a place that the cruise ships to not go to and we continued to snorkel with Lots of turtles. I can't relate how much fun we had...then we continued to 3 other stops to snorkel and swim in the beautiful blue teal waters of Barbados.

They were wonderful and on the way back we had homemade (secret recipe)Rum Punch and some homemade bread.

 

You will definitley not be dissapointed...

 

 

this is his contact Stephen

thriller-ocean-tours @ caribsurf.com

[Benilana]

Hi,

I swam w/ turtles in Hawaii and can't wait to do the same in the Caribbean this Spring. I hope everyone has a chance to do the same, but please remember to never touch the turtles (or any other sea life). It stresses them out which can shorten their lives. Thanks!

[klepton]

Just got back from sailing the Carnival Victory last week, I went with Shasa tours and had a blast! I've heard good things about Silvermoon too, but I can't vouch for them personally.

 

Here's what I can tell you about Shasa:

 

1) Very few other boats with the turtles (1 to be exact). This is the main reason I chose Shasa. Many people reported that with other tours, especially ship tours, that there would be 4+ large boats and 100+ people all trying to swim with 6 turtles. With Shasa there was one other boat there that left a few minutes after we arrived. Other than that, the 11 people on our tour had 8 sea turtles all to ourselves. I got some great pics!

2) Shasa is a private operation run by Jason, the owner. I usually prefer these smaller, more personalized settings. Something to note though is that Jason did mention he might let another guy (Andrew) do some of the tours in the future. Andrew was out with us, and was also a very nice person and great tour guide.

3) The boat is smaller. It holds 12 people, our tour had 11. I never felt cramped because I was up front the whole time. It should be noted that up front doesn't have shade, and I got baked. But I chose to sit up front.

4) The rum punch was very good, second best of all the islands we stopped at

5) Shasa website claims you'll visit the shipwreck, however on my tour as well as many others who use Shasa he says at the beginning that with the cruise ship in port the shipwreck will be very crowded and that he was taking us to a reef instead. So, it's probably safe to assume that if you visit on a cruise ship, the shipwreck snorkeling will be out.

6) He couldn't take us to the reef he wanted to because of the rough seas, so we had to go to yet another reef. It wasn't that nice of a reef, but then again it was third choice after the shipwreck and other reef.

7) The sailing trip to get to the sea turtles was nice and scenic

 

Hope this helps making your decision

[dkfan81]

klepton:

Thanks for the recommendation. We are sailing on Victory in February 2011 for my 30th birthday, and we want to do a turtle snorkel. Sounds like Shasa is the way to go :D

[benjispice]

I booked the Catamaran tour directly with the Cruiseline. They used Tiami. Only about 20 people on board, so lots of space and lots of comfort. We sailed out a spot, jumped in, and there were the turtles!