St. Thomas - below the water

So these aren't my pictures, we bought the professional pictures and videos taken by the diver. Normally I would have taken my own, but we forgot our underwater cameras in our room that morning. Of all the days to forget. haha Our options were to pay $25 for a cheap camera or buy their picture package. I'm glad we did, all the images are HDR and so clear. Plus, we got to just enjoy the experience knowing someone else was documenting it. I have to be honest, we didn't even see half of the creatures the diver did, but we did see quite a few and we got to hold a lot of little sea creatures, too which was awesome.

This was a unique experience, a once in lifetime. You do a short training about the helmets and what to expect, but both Jeremy and I were still terrified before going in the water. The helmets weigh 75 lbs to keep you on the ocean floor, and they place it on your head on a ladder when you are neck deep in and help you down the ladder. Once down, there is a chain fence along the path to hold on to; without it we would have been swept away in the current. It took a while to get used to walking with the helmet on and figuring out how to look out of it. If you wanted to see something you had to turn your whole body and look straight out the front or everything was really distorted. A few times I reached out to touch a fish only to find I was way off.

You also can't look down, so I tripped a few times at first. Along the way Jeremy and I both had something cross our ankles, whatever it was left a big scratch on my ankle. It was pretty creepy, maybe it was this friendly looking fellow below??! : )

It was a really cool adventure, we were so glad we did it. The kids loved looking at the pictures of us in our helmets, and watching video of it, so I guess the extra cost was worth it in the end. If you're ever in St. Thomas, go check it out!

Also, if you'd like to see another view of St. Tomas or more cruise pictures, check out our friend's site too!