♪ Colleen Kelly: With its vibrant culture crystal Blue waters and unique ecosystem that gives way to an infinite world of marine life, it's no wonder millions of tourists visit the Bahamas every year.

The warm current of the Gulf Stream combined with the low altitude and low elevation in the area, create this region's soothing tropical weather.

It also contributes to the Bahama's diverse marine life.

In this episode join me, my daughter Shea, and my niece Keelin as we explore the Bahamas wild side.

I'm Colleen Kelly and this is family travel.

Welcome to the Bahamas.

♪ Colleen: We'll help release endangered sea turtles into the wild, learn how to repopulate coral, beat some rescue dolphins dance in a traditional Bahamian parade, snorkel with a giant manta ray, and meet our new best friend.

Grab your son Adam put on some sunscreen, we're headed to the Bahamas.

♪ Colleen: My name is Colleen Kelly and when I was single I lived abroad and traveled the world.

Then I became a parent and wondered how would I ever travel again?

I set out to find a new way to travel, get back to exploring the world family style.

♪ Colleen: I'm here to guide you on how to get the most out of your family vacation.

Pack your bags and join me, Colleen Kelly.

We're going on vacation.

Funding provided by Ted Tetzlaff, attorneys for your personal and business needs.

♪ Colleen: The Bahamas known officially as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas are made up of a group of islands located in the Atlantic Ocean, a little over 300 miles southeast of Florida's coast.

While Bahemians may speak to each other in a dialect, English is the official language of this once British colony.

This allows tourists to effectively communicate with locals both in town and at the resort of your choosing.

While we flew into Nassau, the Bahamas capital located on the island of New Providence.

Our journey took place on an island that lives up to its name, Paradise Island.

Paradise Island is one of the 30 inhabited islands and 700 total islands that make up the Bahamas.

We chose to stay at the island's iconic resort, Atlantis Paradise Island.

This is not your typical resort, thanks to Atlantis Blue Project Foundation a not for profit organization dedicated to preserving the environment and protecting marine life, guests have the opportunity to work with and learn about the foundation's rescue marine life, all while giving back.

A portion of the profits for every marine life interaction goes back to the Blue Project Foundation helping marine life and the environment.

We couldn't wait to get started doing our part and decided to begin with the juvenile turtle recovery and release program.

Atlantis is the only full-service resort in the world with a facility dedicated to conservation, education, and rehabilitation of marine life.

Today, we're going to start with some sea turtles into the wild.

Are you ready?

Shea: Yes.

Keelin: Yes.

Colleen: All right.

Elgin, one of the Blue project foundations knowledgeable team members began our experience with a tour of one of the rehabilitation centers.

Elgin: That's good, just try to keep as much germs out of the room as possible.

This is a fish hospital.

Here we take care of a lot of the animals.

Why do you think we bring an animal to the fish hospital?

Shea: So they can bring them back.

Elgin: Well, yes so we can bring them back to health.

Here we actually have a stingray, one of our stingrays that we brought in recently.

When they come in for us from the ocean this is where they would stop and then over here, we got our lobsters.

Colleen: What is this called exactly?

Elgin: This is the spiny lobster.

Unlike in northern Maine lobsters, they don't have claws, they have those antennas with the barbs on them that's spiny to protect themselves.

Colleen: It's interesting.

Keelin: Why do they block in a circle?

Elgin: That's a cool thing that they do actually in the wild.

When to get out to forage at night, they go out in large groups and sometimes they actually make a line, almost like a conga line.

They're following one behind the other so it's safer to stay together, stay with the group so they will actually tail one behind the other.

Colleen: What other animals do you have here?

Elgin: Well, we've got sea stars, we've got jellyfish and, of course, I know you guys are waiting to see the turtles, they're here as well.

Colleen: Let's go see them if that's okay.

Elgin: Come on, let's go check them out.

Colleen: After taking a look at the jellyfish and petting the sea stars you're ready to meet the turtles.

Colleen: These are the sea turtles?

Eglin: Yes, they are.

Colleen: Oh my goodness, they are so cute.

Eglin: [laughs] Colleen: Tell us a little bit about the sea turtles.

Eglin: These ones we have here are green sea turtles.

They were raised here at Atlantis.

We have a captive breeding program for green sea turtles.

All the sea turtles are endangered and the green sea turtle is no exception.

We're doing our part to actually keep the species healthy out there in the wild.

Colleen: That's awesome.

Eglin: Since about 2006 our females started going up on a manmade beach and actually laying eggs.

The egg takes about 60 days to actually incubate and hatch.

Then most of the little ones are released in about 48 hours.

These ones have been with us for about three years and now it's time for us to release them and that's what you're going to do.

You're going to help us to release them.

Colleen: Oh my goodness, we're going to release them back into the wild?

Eglin: Back into the wild.

Colleen: That is very cool.

Eglin: You are helping the wild population releasing turtles.

Colleen: Because they're endangered.

Eglin: They are.

Colleen: Awesome.

Eglin: Before we release them though we've got some work to do.

We've got to weigh it and we've got to measure it and we're going to record that before we leave them to go into the water.

Colleen: Can we do that with you right now?

Eglin: Yes.

You're going to do that with me right now.

Colleen: Awesome.

He looks pretty heavy.

Eglin: [laughs] We're going to see just how heavy it is now.

Colleen: [laughs] Eglin: This is our weighing structure.

I'm going to put it right here for you.

Colleen: Moms don't like to be weighed, just you know.

Eglin: [laughs] I'm going to get the first one.

Right here.

Do you guys want to help?

Shea: Yes.

Eglin: Come on.

Get down here.

Bring this over.

We'll get all together.

Are you ready to rip it right up?

There you go.

Colleen: Was he heavy?

Eglin: [laughs] How much does it weigh?

Shea: 18 pounds.

Eglin: 18 pounds.

The structure itself is four pounds.

18 minus 4?

Shea: 14.

Eglin: 14 pounds.

It's 14 pounds.

Colleen: It's pretty big.

It's like a giant turkey big.

Do we have to let them go?

Eglin: [laughs] Colleen: Once the turtles were weighed and measured, we still had one more thing to do.

We headed off to Rdse Island to release the sea turtles into the wilds.

Along the way, Elgin continued to educate us on the importance of sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation.

Eglin: Guys, tell me what do you think is the greatest threat to sea turtles?

Shea: [unintelligible].

Eglin: They're a threat, but they're a natural threat.

I want something that's not natural.

Shea: Humans.

Eglin: Humans, you're right.

Humans are one of the greatest threat.

Why are they a threat to our sea turtles?

Shea: Via plastics.

Eglin: True.

We put a lot of stuff in the water especially plastics and a turtle will see a plastic bag and he's thinking, "Jellyfish" and he's going to eat it.

If it's stuck in the throat, he can't breathe and he could die or he may even swallow it and then it leads to other staph infections.

Colleen: On our way to releasing the sea turtles, we stumbled upon an unfortunate site.

A plastic bag floating in the water.

Thankfully our new friends were there to help.

To prevent plastic bag pollution like this, bring your own reusable bags when shopping and if you do use plastic bags, be sure to properly recycle them at your local grocery store.

Eglin: [unintelligible] on this or choke on this.

Colleen: It wasn't long before we reached Rose island and we were surrounded by sea turtles and we could tell that ours were ready to join them.

Shea: There's [unintelligible 00:08:39] now.

Shea: This is Hawk.

Colleen: Nice strong name.

Here we go.

[unintelligible].

In the blink of an eye, Maui was off and swimming.

Free.

That was awesome.

Shortly after it was time to release Hawk.

Although it was hard to say goodbye to Maui and Hawk, we knew by how quickly they took off in the water that these turtles were finally home.

Before heading back, we took some time to explore the other marine life surrounding us.

The juvenile turtle recovery and release program is available to all guests encouraging them to take an active part in marine life conservation and education.

The whole excursion including snorkeling lasts for about four hours and should be reserved in advance.

It's not every day we get to release sea turtles into the wild and we hope nothing but the best for Maui and hawk.

All that snorkeling worked up our appetites.

Thankfully, there is no shortage of delicious food in the Bahamas.

Fish by Hose Andreas is no exception.

Chef Deja met with us to give us an inside look at the restaurant and what makes it unique.

Deja: This was a restaurant located at the cove.

It's one of our luxury dining outlets.

We focus on serving local cuisine.

Our fish comes in every day and it's fresh.

It comes from a local fishermen as well.

We get the local hot snapper, and local cooper, as well as the lionfish.

The lionfish is one of our most popular dishes when it's available.

It is an invasive species and we try to remove that invasive species from our coral reefs and it's also delicious as well.

When we put it on our menu, we're actually eliminating that species from our waters and serving it to our guests.

It makes this dramatic appearance when it ever comes out of the kitchen.

It's lightly buttered and fried and then we serve as our guests with a side of lemon and [unintelligible 00:10:49].

Colleen: We couldn't wait to try the lionfish for ourselves.

Wow, that's amazing.

Is this the lionfish?

Deja: Yes it is.

Colleen: That's beautiful.

Deja: Yes, hope you enjoy your meal.

Colleen: Thank you so much, wow [chuckles].

Look at that.

All right, girls do you know about the lionfish?

There are what's called an invasive species, which means there's too many of them, so the fact that we're eating them right now we're basically helping the environment.

We're helping the environment by eating fish.

♪ Our guest could find pretty of water slides and pools at Aqua Venture.

Their marine life program is one of the biggest highlights for visitors.

Whether you're walking through a tunnel surrounded by sharks, on a water slide with 360 degrees of marine life surrounding you, you'll find yourself completely immersed in this underwater world.

It's clear to see why people love feeling like they're part of something bigger during their stay.

Oh, we've come to Bahamas a few times and there's lots to do here with the kids because there's the dolphins, there's the sharks, there's a lot of stuff to do for adults and kids.

Shea: I saw a kids sharks and [unintelligible 00:12:10].

Colleen: I think we're going to do swimming with the dolphins and then maybe you just check out the city a little bit.

Shea: I'm excited to see them.

♪ Colleen: The Bahamas are home to one of the largest coral reefs in the world.

With 75% of the coral reefs endangered, we're going to do our best to help out by planting coral.

We met up with expert Haley Joe Kart to teach us about coral reefs and the coral repopulating process.

Haley: I work with the Perry Institute for Marine Science and we are a nonprofit, they're helping to reverse the kind of our coral reefs.

Colleen: Why is that important?

Haley: Coral reefs are in danger all over the world and they're disappearing really fast in various threats.

It's really important now that we're taking action to reverse what's happening to them.

One thing that you can definitely do when you're traveling is use a reef safe sunscreen.

Colleen: Do people have those [laughs]?

Haley: Yes, fantastic.

There's many of them on the markets now.

The Perry Institute for Marine Science has been working with the blue project foundation for over a decade now.

We've been working with them to create many marine protected areas, and to do a lot of work protecting the coral reefs and marine animals that are out there.

For a few years now, we've had a coral nursery here, since it's actually just right behind us here in the lagoon.

Colleen: Oh, a nursery, [crosstalk] [laughs].

Haley: Yes, it's a nursery where we grow baby corals, if you like.

Then once they've grown big enough, which is every year, so once a year, we go out with a group of local volunteers, and we plant those corals back into the coral reef.

It helps regenerate the populations of corals they're out there.

Colleen: That's awesome.

Haley: Over the years, we've planted thousands of corals, so it's good for checks.

Colleen: Thousands, you're really giving back to the environment, that's fantastic.

I love it.

Haley: We're going to do our part I think today, right?

Yes.

Colleen: I don't know how to do this, you're going to help me.

Haley: [laughs] You guys are going to help me today we are going to build another nursery.

This nursery is going to increase the nursery by an extra 90 fragments of coral.

Colleen: Really?

Haley: Yes.

The coral that we're growing is called finger coral is priorities-priorities and it grows really well here at the lagoon, Atlantis.

You are going to help me prepare the tree.

We're going to put it all together and then I'm actually going to dive it in today, populate, and put the coral babies on there, and then we just let them grow for the next 12 months.

Colleen: No way, seriously?

This is awesome.

Haley: Yes, and I can show you exactly how we do that right now.

Colleen: Okay, we're ready.

You're ready?

All right, let's make this happen.

I feel so good about this.

Haley: Okay.

What we have here is this is one of the arms of the nest race that we're going to build today with the fishing lines hanging off.

We've got the little crimp here and this is where we're going to actually attach the coral.

We've got live corals in there and what we're going to be doing is putting the live pieces of coral into this new sandy water.

Colleen: It will just kind of regenerate?

Haley: It just grows.

It's like pruning a tree in your garden.

Colleen: That's incredible.

Haley: When you prune the tree it grows quicker.

each pruning, exactly is in the corals.

Colleen: This is all new for me.

This is awesome.

Haley: It's like underwater gardening.

[laughs] It is.

Colleen: Gardening in the ocean.

I guess so, yes.

Haley: Then in 12 months, we'll come back, we'll trim off the piece that's grown and I'll set and plant it onto the reef.

The piece that's put in here will remain on there for years producing more and more coral.

Colleen: Really?

Haley: Yes.

The same piece.

Colleen: That's incredible.

Speaker: With Haley Joe's help, we built the coral tree one limb at a time.

Before long, our tree was ready to plant.

Colleen: All right, it looks like our hard work has paid off.

Guys, this is going to be 90 fragments of pristis pristis, if I said that correctly, right?

Haley: You did.

Yes.

Colleen: All right.

Well, I'm ready to go to plant the nursery.

Haley: Fantastic.

Let's go.

Colleen: Ready?

Haley: All right, let's do.

Colleen: let's make it happen.

Haley: While we got to do our part by helping build the tree, we left the planting to Haley Joe.

Even though coral reefs make up only 1% of the ocean's habitat, they actually include over 25% of its species, showing that efforts like repopulating our coral reefs are critical in helping our planet.

When the sun goes down on Paradise Island, the fun is just getting started.

Thanks to the Junkanoo Parade.

Junkanoo is a celebration of Bahamian culture through elaborate costumes, invigorating music, and, of course, the universal unifier, dance.

Stan: Junkanoo is the heartbeat of the Bahamian people.

Junkanoo is really an African expression.

It's like a longing for home.

Years ago, when our ancestors were brought here as slaves, they performed some of the rituals that they did in Africa and found ways of relating them in this society.

In the beginning, there were many other Caribbean nations that had a form of Junkanoo, but we in the Bahamas are one of the few places where it's continued to be practiced and it's evolved into something even larger than the original intention.

Haley: We certainly couldn't miss this.

A big celebration.

Colleen: We're at Marina Village.

We're about to experience a Junkanoo Parade and it's supposed to be unbelievable, so are you ready?

Haley: Yes.

Colleen: All right.

Haley: Get ready.

Are we all ready?

Woo-hoo.

♪ Stan: Junkanoo allows us to feel free.

It's like you can release your spirit and let it soar.

Colleen: When the parade starts and the music begins, it's impossible not to join in and clearly, I couldn't help myself.

Haley: Junkanoo is so fun, so unexpected.

What a fun parade.

What do you guys think?

Stan: I think Junkanoo, it really shows their culture and it was really fun and loud.

[laughter] I liked the costumes.

Stan: You like the costumes?

Stan: Costumes.

Keelin: The instruments, the drums, especially the drums.

Haley: Especially the drums.

Keelin: We played the drums.

Especially the drums.

Colleen: There's nothing like a celebration to bring people together.

Junkanoo is proof of that.

♪ While many vacationing in the Bahamas may prefer to sleep in, the day begins bright and early for the caretakers at Dolphin Cay.

From feedings and playtime to daily checkups, these dedicated specialists make the marine life at Dolphin Cay their highest priority.

Tazia: Dolphin Cay is a world-class marine mammal habitat that is dedicated to education and conservation and also home to the Hurricane Katrina survivors.

Back in 2005, Hurricane Katrina completely destroyed the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport, Mississippi, orphaning, essentially, 17 bottlenose dolphins.

Eight of those 17 were washed out during a search and had to be found and rescued and then were reunited with the rest of their dolphin family and the reunion happened here at the Atlantis.

Colleen: We couldn't wait to meet Dolphin Cay's other incredible marine life.

Atlantis has over 165 full-time marine life specialists taking care of rescued marine life every day of the year.

Today, we're at Dolphin Cay and we're going to check out the sea lions.

Are you all ready to make this happen?

Speakers: Yes.

Colleen: All right, let's go.

Before participating in the sun-up-with-sea-lions experience, we met up with Dolphin Cay's marine mammal specialist, John Madigan for a special behind the scenes tour.

John: Welcome guys.

I want to show you real quick our veterinary care center, our laboratory right here.

Last year alone, we brought in over 50 animals to our Animal Care and Rescue Center and we were able to rehabilitate them and we had almost a 90% success rate with all of our rehabilitees if you can hear me please.

Colleen: I love that.

That's a great thing that you guys are doing.

We're going to meet one of those animals that were rescued?

John: We are going to meet one of the animals.

Yes.

Her name is Sunshine.

She is very much one of the rock stars of our population here.

She's one of the animals that loves the cameras, and loves the attention, and loves hanging out with people.

Colleen: All right, should we go meet her then?

John: Let's go meet her.

Colleen: All right, let's go.

After a tour of the lab, we couldn't wait to meet the guest of honor.

John: All right, guys.

Let me introduce you here to Sunshine.

She is a 17-year-old California sea lion.

Remember, one thing we like to utilize a lot here is a lot of pettings.

Anytime she comes to you, she loved the petting, she loves the attention.

Colleen: It's so soft.

John: We do utilize that as a form of reinforcement.

If she comes up to you and she thinks that she's doing something wrong, we would actually not show with our pettings.

We always want to give that attention.

We want to let her know that she's doing really good, right sleepy?

Yes.

Colleen: Oh, my goodness gracious.

John: You guys are going to help me with the physical exam to make sure that she's in good health.

This is something that we take place every day with all of our animals to make sure that they're in, not only good health, but they are in a good humor and ready to have some fun throughout the day super cute.

Let's go, Sunny.

Colleen: It's working on it.

John: Good girl.

You're such graceful.

When I say every day we check our animals out, we do literally check them out top to bottom to make sure they're in good health.

You're going to help me start off.

The first thing we're going to check when they're one-by-one target is we're going to check her mouth to make sure that she doesn't have any mouth issues.

What I would like you to do is take your finger and just drag it along her mouth right there.

Check out her teeth, go ahead.

Colleen: Here?

John: Yes.

Go and touch him.

Colleen: Oh, my God.

John: You'll see they're very black.

Don't be shy, you touch all of them.

All right, you'll see they're very black.

It's completely natural for their teeth to be black.

They did not have the enamel like we have on our teeth.

We like to say the blacker the teeth are, the more healthy they are.

As you can see, she's got very healthy teeth, open.

Colleen: Yes, for sure.

What's the difference between a seal and a sea lion?

John: Seals and sea lions are very commonly confused.

The easiest way to tell a seal and a sea lion apart is first, you got to look for their cute little ears.

Sea lions have cute little ears, which you'll notice right here on top.

Is there external ear flaps?

We're talking about these cute little ear flaps you see right here.

If you were to see a seal, they would not have those cute ear flaps, is it?

No, do they have them?

No, they don't have them.

No, they don't.

Only sea lions, right?

Yes.

Another way to tell is how they walk.

Check it out.

When sea lions walk around, they walk around on all four flippers.

Good girl.

These guys have functional hipbones which allows them to walk on all four flippers.

Seals cannot do that.

Seals have a huge hip bone.

If you were to ever see a seal on land, you'd see him down on their bellies, and when seals walk, they're sliding.

Yes, just like you see right there.

Come on, let's give her a round of applause for her seal impersonation.

[applause] John: Good girl.

Go ahead and cool yourself off.

Go for a quick dive.

Colleen: Thank you so much for having us.

This was awesome.

What an amazing experience.

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: Thank you.

John: Yes, I'm glad to have you guys being able to come out and meet Sunshine.

Thank you, guys, for helping us fund our new project.

[sea lion honk] John: That's her form of saying thank you.

Speaker: You're welcome.

Colleen: Sunshine definitely made her way into our hearts.

♪ Colleen: One of the other unique marine life experiences is twilight snorkeling at the ruins.

This guided tour takes us into the habitat of tropical fish, sharks, and even a giant manta ray.

While Keelin decided to set this activity out, Shea, I couldn't wait to get up close and personal with these beautiful creatures.

Colleen: Hi, how are you?

Laurleann: Hello.

I'm Laurleann, nice to meet you.

Colleen: Hi, nice to meet you.

This is Shea.

How are you?

Laurleann: Hi, Shea.

Are you excited to do a snorkel?

Colleen: Yes, twilight snorkling, something I've never done before ever.

Laurleann: Our water comes directly from the ocean.

The water turns over every 90 minutes so every 90 minutes, we have fresh patches of water flowing in and out.

Inside here, we have 14,000 to 17, 000 local and exotic fish inside there.

Colleen: No way.

Laurleann: Yes, and they're going to be right on the side of you, guys.

Colleen: This is so exciting.

Laurleann: Yes.

We're going to make this happen.

You guys, we're going to get all suit up.

Let's go, ladies.

Colleen: All right.

Let's go.

Colleen: Once we don our protective wetsuits and fins, we were ready to get into the water.

There's no limit to the marine life you can see while snorkeling.

Tropical fish, sharks, and stingrays are bound in this safe, enclosed area.

Among the most majestic of the marine life is Coco, a manta ray.

Manta rays like Coco can reach up to seven meters in width and feed primarily on plankton.

While these gentle giants may look intimidating, they are harmless to humans.

Using the large, pointed extensions of their fins to help paddle, plankton into their mouth.

The Twilight snorkeling experience should be booked in advance and is recommended for those ages 10 and up.

With the stunning sea life surrounding you and the glow of the underwater lights leading the way, twilight snorkeling is a great way to experience the beauty of the ocean.

It was also an unforgettable way for us to end our trip to the Bahamas.

If you get a chance to do something fun and adventurous, take a chance, do it because it's worth it.

It's awesome.

That's life's about.

All right, I got to go see some more manta rays.

Bye-nye.

♪ Colleen: As much as we hate to leave the Bahamas, it's time for the girls and I to say goodbye.

We did our part by releasing mountain hawk into the wild and helping repopulate Coral.

We dance the night away with a celebration of Bahamian culture.

Enjoyed some delicious fresh lionfish.

Learned all about the marine life at Dolphin Cay and brightened up our day with a little sunshine, and even swam with a giant manta ray.

With all these incredible experiences, our vacation to the Bahamas was definitely one to remember.

Thanks for watching family travel on Colin Kelly enjoy making memories on your next family vacation.

♪ Funding provided by Ted Tetzlaff, attorneys for your personal and business needs.

For more information on upcoming destinations and projects, visit familytravelck.com.

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We'd love to hear from you.

♪