Finally!

Mangel Halto beachToday we headed south to Mangel Halto, a place we’ve only been once before. You walk down a ramp into a grove of mangrove trees. Birds chirp all around you, and there are a couple of openings through the dense mangroves that allow you to walk along sandy, shallow water until you hit the open ocean.

The water is shallow for quite a ways, then you hit the
Mangel halto, entrycoral. And what a coral forest it is! It’s a wonderful spot, filled with every kind of coral you can imagine, and it goes on for miles! It’s really quite a remarkable swim. The only downside is that the current is tremendously strong, and you must constantly swim against it.

Coral at Mangel Halto The visibility was very good, and there were lots of fish to see, but it was just so much work to stay in place! Constantly battling the current really tired us out quickly, so we were not able to stay out there very long. We saw some cool stuff, but man, I’m not sure I’d come back here unless it was dead calm!

HogfishWe came home for a quick bite to eat, then Mike and I headed over to one of our favorite, go-to locations, Malmok beach. Pam was too tuckered out from the swim at Mangel Halto. She’s been doing really great with swimming, and walking. Her physio coach is going to be impressed with her improvement! Even some of the ladies around the time share have commented on how much her walking has improved.

The ocean at Malmok was really clear, with great visibility. We saw some cool stuff, then we finally hit the jackpot! Yup, we got to swim with a turtle! First swim with a turtle this month! Mike had never been in the wild with a turtle before so it was pretty special.

Turtle He wasn’t a really big one, but hey, it’s the biggest one Mike’s seen! He cruised straight out into the open ocean, and we followed. After a while, we realized we were probably a kilometre or two off shore! It was indeed a tough swim back, especially after all the effort we’d expended in Mangel Halto earlier in the day. But it was worth it!

There is something special about swimming with a turtle. They move through the water with real ease, flicking one front paddle or the other. If you get too close, or he feels threatened, he kicks it into overdrive with both paddles flashing, and he can leave you far behind in a hurry!

PalometaWe saw some palometas, a pretty cool looking fish, which we have seen many times. But these ones were so big! They were easily thirty per cent larger than any we’ve seen. The pic doesn’t really show how big there are, but you can see they have some orange color on their underside, which we’d never noticed on other palometas before.