Today we took a long drive over to Hopkins, a small Garifuna coastal town.

Almost immediately after we arrived, we went snorkeling which was a new experience for me. It took some time to get comfortable with it and all of the things to remember: hands/arms at my side, don’t touch the coral or they’ll die, and getting used to having flippers on my feet.

On the way out to the reef, as we were swimming over some sea grass, Professor Fernandez and Donovan (our boat captain) saw a Barracuda. Almost simultaneously they said, “Look, there’s a big Barracuda below us!” But I felt like I had my hands full just keeping up with them and I answered, “I don’t want to look!”  Later when I felt more confident with snorkeling, I regretted not looking at him/her.

It was beautiful when we got to the coral reef. The fish were amazing – what beautiful colors and patterns! I am looking forward to finding a book where I can identify some of the fish we saw. I was making mental notes of colors and patterns of the fish.  We also saw a large Spotted Eagle Ray. Very cool!

We came back to the resort and a group of girls went to dinner at an adorable place Stephanie recommended (she had lunch there).

Next it was time to go to the Drum Circle. I had no idea what it would be like so I went with an open mind. As soon as we walked in and saw a stage, I knew we were in for a treat; that this wasn’t some random people drumming on a beach like back home.

The performance was great – ten times better than I expected! We learned during their break that they have won the Battle of the Bands competition several years in a row. They also got (almost) all of us up to dance. We were pretty embarrassed for the most part but we did it anyway – and why not? They were putting on a great show for us, the least we could do was respond with enthusiasm and participate at their request.

We only spent one day at Hopkins but it was definitely a memorable stop!