Day Trip to Tortuga Island

For our first USAC led trip in Costa Rica, we went to Tortuga Island. It is called Tortuga Island because tortuga means turtle in Spanish, and the island itself is shaped like a turtle. We traveled there by boat, which was either a great adventure or the worst experience of your life depending on your sensitivity to motion sickness. I was on the smallest boat and really enjoyed the ride. It was about an hour and a half boat ride to Tortuga Island from Puntarenas. It was a bright sunny day, and the wind from the boat ride was a nice change from the hot, humid weather in Puntarenas.

When we arrived, the first thing we did was go snorkeling. I absolutely loved it. We literally swam alongside entire schools of fish. We saw some Dory fish from Finding Nemo, and there was a school of hundreds of little minnows under the boat. The fish did not even seem to be phased by us snorkelers, implying that it was really their ocean and we were merely visitors. After we finished snorkeling, we spent the rest of the day at the beach. The beach at Tortuga is fabulous. The water is a crisp, cerulean blue and the sand is practically white. The island itself is quaint and is definitely a hot spot for tourists. We walked around the island, attempted to take a few action shots jumping on the beach, ate a catered lunch, and went tubing. Growing up in Kansas near a lake, tubing was a common past time for most kids growing up. However, tubing on a huge hot dog tube in the Pacific Ocean surrounded by mountains and islands compares to nothing I have ever experienced.