There are turtles in the grassy bays - Brewers Bay, Secret Harbor, Lindberg Bay, Vessup Bay, on STT seem to have a fairly consistent resident population.

there are two type of sea turtles at Sapphire. Hawk's bill and leather backs,

Go in front of Crystal Cove, Not Sapphire Resort.

Go off shore until you get to the grass and go about 50 feet more.

Swim parellel to the shore in front of Crystal Cove

Better in the morinings but late afternoon is not bad

billd

bill, could you explain crystal cove a little better to me? do i go to sapphire and that is a part of the beach or separate all together. I guess i could go to sapphire and they could tell me. My plan for tomorrow is coki AM, then on to linquist and then sapphire.

Hello speedr1023,

At Sapphire, if you were standing at the watersports booth and facing the water - the Sapphire buildings are to the right and if you walked along the shore to the left a short way and then looked left you would see Crystal Cove. Same beach.

The beach has a sandy side (left when facing water) and a side with pebbles/rocks (right side, again when facing the water). On the sandy side about middle of the beach if you enter there and swim out a bit you will see the seagrass and can explore that area looking for turtles. On the right side, if you enter around where there is a small rocky outcrop right where the water meets the shore and swim around the rocks and out toward the point there are fish amongst the rocks and coral pretty much from close to shore out to the point. If you do swim out to the point note that there is a pretty strong current when you get out to it.

You can ask at the watersports booth for pointers.

Coki, Lindquist and Sapphire - what a rough day ;). Drink plenty of water and protect yourself from the sun. Have fun!!

--Islander

Secret Harbor is a great place! Water seems to always be calm as can be. Here is the one I got snapshots of with my cam (sorry some a little blury... older dig cam and he wasn't exactly "put" "putting" along in the water...)

Hi Billd and Walt50,

Just to clarify--the two types of sea-turtle you would see snorkelling in StJ/STT are hawksbills and green turtles. Leatherbacks only are in shallow water briefly in order to come onto shore and nest. The turtle in the pictures (which are great pictures by the way:-)) is a hawksbill.

thanks islander.

on the sea turtles remember that they are protected and should not be fed nor chased. Just looking at them is a wonder. As you can see there are many places to see them. They move so gracefully and they can go pretty fast. So enjoy them and enjoy your vacation. We want you have a great time and to come back again and again.

billd.

Walt50,
Great pictures! Thanks for sharing!

I'm just lucky I picked up a set of flippers before we went .. heh. I'm a decent swimmer but this guy in cruise control was a slight struggle to keep up with. I assume he is probably semi used to seeing people or even swimming with them. Other fish mostly parted the way for him. Very graceful animal 😉