The last couple of days we didn’t have plans; we were simply exploring. Always fun! Today, however, our plan was kayaking and snorkeling in the Mangrove Lagoon part of the Virgin Islands National Park. The morning started as the others, walk to a restaurant for breakfast, then around to the sea and back to our condo.

At the restaurant, we noticed a peninsula adjacent to our beach, which we decided to explore this morning. Geologically fascinating!

The iguana didn’t move the entire time we were exploring the peninsula.

We wisely found a taxi to get us to the Ecotour that we had booked in the afternoon. No more walking along highways for us.

First, lunch — but not for the iguanas wandering under the tables!

Our group consisted of six people: a couple a little younger than us who each wanted their own kayak, a young strong couple who had never kayaked or snorkeled before, and us. We got a two person kayak.

We followed Nash, our guide for the afternoon, out to the mangroves. On the way we saw lots of upside-down jellyfish (Cassopiea) on the seabed. They looked like white rocks at first glance, but when you leaned over, they were obviously not rock.

The rare yellow leaves on the red mangrove trees are called sacrifice leaves because all the salt from the environment goes to them until they fill up and die. The less common black mangrove trees kind of sweat the salt out of every leaf. You can taste the salt on the outsides of their leaves.

We beached our kayaks to look at nature a little inland.

From the beach, we swam out to the place where lots of fish stayed. We had snorkels but no fins because they are not allowed in the lagoon. Cool raindrops on one’s back while swimming face down in warm ocean water is an unusual experience. Unfortunately the rain made seeing in the water difficult.

Overall, we kayaked over three miles and swam half a mile —without fins! A good excursion!

• Virgin Islands