Friday was Pam’s big day with Herby, the gigantic grouper. She got instructions on how to use the scuba gear, since it was a dive, not just a snorkel. She got in a sea water pool with stingrays, tarpons, Herby, and tons of other fish, including a huge porcupine fish.
She was able to feed lemon sharks and nurse sharks, as well as some gigantic sea turtles, stingrays and the other fish hanging about! She was certainly pumped about it, and seemed to have a great time.
After her dive, we headed “north” to Westpunt for more open water snorkeling. We visited a small beach called Playa Kenepa, which had the usual assortment of fish. Entry into the water was easy, with a nice sandy bottom. We got to see quite a few flounder here, on the sandy bottom. 
Along the left wall, there was some very nice looking coral that was in surprisingly good shape.
We were hoping to see some turtles, so we bailed out of Playa Kenepa and headed a little south to Playa Lagun, another small cove. As we entered the water, another snorkeler mentioned that there had been lots of turtles here – Yesterday! arghhh… We paddled around and it was very nice as well. Sandy entry to ocean, with lots of nice coral.
The left side had some really fine coral, with a big school of blue tangs. 
Hidden amongst them was a pair of trumpetfish, with the mouths and head all turned to a purple color, so they could hide with the tangs. Very cool to see.
The right side was covered in crabs! Was really something to see so many of them, basically everywhere! We saw two little tiny flounder, one about 3 inches, the other 
about 2 inches, chasing each other across the sandy bottom.
We had dinner at a place Pam has been talking about for about 3 months! It’s on Mambo Beach, which is basically a 10 minute walk, or a 5 minute swim, from our condo. We’d read about it on the internet, and people describe it as a fish buffet. That’s wrong, it is not a buffet. It is more like a fish market, where they have displayed fresh fish and seafood. There was grouper, barracuda, silk snapper, red snapper, parrotfish, shrimps, scallops, lobster, moonfish, 
flounder…. You chose what you want, how much you want, then pay by the 100 grams. A skewer of 5 shrimps was $12, scallops were $4 EACH, lobster was $19 per 100 grams – some of the fish was as cheap as $7 per 100 grams. They then grill your selection and serve it with coleslaw and potatoes. At close to $150 bucks for dinner, I don’t think it’s good value.
The restaurant is very romantic, with large cushions to lounge on, and it’s right on the beach. The waitress was friendly and good. The only problem is that I want to get a hold of the putz who thought up this serve fish rare idea, and give his head a slap. Fish should be cooked. Period. Those people who want to eat raw fish, oughtta check out this new invention called fire.
Playa Lagun is a smaller bay, near Westpunt. It has a couple of nice restaurants very close by – one behind the parking lot, and another that requires climbing a rather long set of stairs up to the Bahia apartment complex. Both have pretty good food, but the Bahia Beach Bar has much nicer views. The beach itself has a few palapas, a masseuse, a batido (smoothie) food truck, and a place that sells fresh fish. There is no shower, and restrooms are in the restaurants only.
It’s always quite busy. Lots of sun tanners on loungers, that are for rent. The bay is quite narrow, but there is usually always something fun to see in the ocean. The best way to enter the ocean is on the far left side. It’s very sandy there, and is quite easy to get in. The right and middle of the bay is quite rocky with lots of bigger chunks of coral that hurt your feet, so definitely enter and exit on the left side.
