Nekton Diving Cruises welcomes you aboard to discover the underwater world by participating in our Snorkel First program. What better way to spend your vacation than floating in warm, clear water above beautiful coral gardens teeming with colorful tropical fish? With Nekton's Snorkel First program, beginners to experienced snorkelers can enjoy the turquoise water and the underwater sites throughout the Caribbean. You'll also enjoy special attention from one of Nekton's professionally trained "snorkel pros."

 Prior to each snorkel excursion, the snorkel pro will brief you about the site you will explore. Next, since the Nekton's live-aboards are moored on dives sites typically too deep for snorkeling, you'll travel to shallower snorkel sites in one of Nekton's twin-vee tenders. These special tenders were selected specifically for the Snorkel First program as they provide an incredibly dry and stable ride. Once at the snorkel site, you may join the snorkel pro for a guided tour or explore the area on your own with your buddy.

During your week-long snorkeling adventure with Nekton, you'll discover a diversity of underwater beauty. The sites included among Nekton's itineraries range from shallow ship wrecks to beautiful coral gardens to snorkeling with wild spotted dolphins.

For example, while snorkeling the Wreck of the Hesperus, you'll see thick schools of french grunts, spade fish and several resident loggerhead turtles. San Salvador's "Columbus Courtyard" offers pristine coral heads with reef critters tucked in the nooks and crannies. At Water Cay, you can explore a small airplane wreck and cuts and tunnels of the island. And a special day at the White Sand Ridge features the once-in-a-lifetime thrill of interacting with wild spotted dolphins.

When you participate in Snorkel First, you will truly experience a unique, active, relaxing and adventurous vacation.

Here is what Nekton guests had to say about snorkeling on our Belize itinerary: Belize is not just for diving! A companion and I had the opportunity to snorkel the Belize reefs -- from Long Caye (Lighthouse Reef) to the Turneffe Islands - aboard the Nekton Pilot. We were treated to two snorkel trips a day -- courtesy of Captain Effie and Activities Director Mike. Each trip was an adventure as we were the first to discover the "snorkel" sites along the way. What the Belize waters have is a large variety of fish - no one fish dominated the area. Each snorkel produced sightings of the usual cast of "fishy" characters -- squirrel fish, parrot fish, trumpet fish, gray angels, French angels, grunts, barracudas, reef squid, etc. but the special treats were two separate eagle ray sightings and a nurse shark. And of course, those reef creatures -- lobsters and crabs - made guest appearances at some of the snorkel sites. The coral was simply spectacular. Mike named one of the sites, Gorgonia Gardens because we had never seen so many different types of soft corals in one place. The reefs are truly amazing and they go on and on and on. Each site was special -- some were very shallow -- 5- 10 feet from the surface where the biggest challenge was not hitting the coral while others were 15 - 20 feet deep and one had to dive down to get a glimpse of that puffer fish hiding under an overhang. Altogether, the snorkeling on the Nekton Belize trip was excellent and I would recommend that others share this snorkeling experience -- even the divers who joined us had fun snorkeling. Diane Lirio and Vincent Couchara