Authentic Island experience - Not for pampered tourists. Loved snorkeling with turtles…. We had our own gear, which was much easier and better quality than what was provided.

By country tours were great-not to be missed. - Maira David and Miguel from Bu Country tours were fantastic. Friendly, courteous and informative they were wonderful. This is a lifetime experience not to be missed. It is not strenuous-you simply float by the boat and the turtles are all around you. We had five random size green turtles that were absolutely beautiful stay with us the entire time. The turtles are not aggressive at all and many times you brush up against them. They are truly beautiful creatures. Don’t miss this while in Mindelo.

Top organization - We went on an island tour on Sal and S. Vicente. In addition, a snorkeling trip with turtles and two hikes on S. Antao. The excursions were perfectly organized, the guides were very friendly and the drivers helpful and experienced. We recommend BU Tours gladly.

Incredible experience with the turtles of São Pedro - We loved this excursion! It is incredible to swim with the turtles. We would, however, recommend more safety measures for entering/exiting the water.

Turtle-ganza! - If you have ever done a turtle dive in the US, recalibrate your expectations. After the 200-300-meter boat ride, we are at the site with around a dozen turtles. For the half-hour, we snorkeled around, and the turtles (and a few fish) swam around. Several times, they bumped into us! The water was warm and calm enough to make the whole excursion amazing!

Loved the Sea Turtles - Fabulous! Great Experience. We were picked up promptly and delivered to the beach. Our guide made us feel very comfortable. Entry to and from the beach went very well. Being in the water with the sea turtles was such a wonderful experience. We spent 40 minutes swimming very close to them. Beautiful creatures.

Sao Vicente Excursion - We absolutely loved this excursion! Swimming with the turtles is an incredible experience. Our guide Nelson was really nice and friendly.

Beautiful Experience with the Turtles - My guide Maira was excellent. Her English was great and I was picked up on time (the bus arrived early) from my guesthouse. We went to San Pedro and joined other people waiting to take the excursion from the turtle house. About 45 - 60 minutes is spent with the turtles. One has the choice to remain in the boat or to snorkel. I do not have strong swimming skills, so I chose to spend most of my time in the boat photographing the turtles. Maira was kind and empathetic to my lack of swimming skills. She gently encouraged me to go into the water and offered to join me, but was also supportive when I quickly wanted to return to the boat. We were given snorkeling equipment and life jackets, although we had to share the life jackets as not enough were available. A ladder was also not available to go in and out of the boat, although I was told that there would be one on board. These oversights were the result of poor planning and the excursion would have been safer with enough life jackets and a ladder. I would recommend this excursion because the turtles are impressive and the BU Country Tours staff was great, but more attention to safety would be an area of improvement.

Rip off - rude 'tour guides'. - DONT pay anyone to see these turtles. You can swim to them off the beach if you can handle the harassment and veiled threats from 'tour guides'. Don't even bother. If you feel guilty for having $ or Euros donate to Simabo the dog rescue place on Mindelo. These places rip you off.

Total disaster - A real circus where they don’t respect the animal at all, they take you on a barge to the point where the turtles are, the locals are the ones who have the business set up there and all the companies are the ones who pay them a percentage to take tourists to the dive spot, which by the way, is about 50 m from the shore. You arrive and in our case the guide of the company we hired explains very well that they should not touch or burden the turtles, things that I liked because they seemed to respect quite a lot. When I got there it was horrible, 3 barges, two of them with foreigners chasing, touching and harassing the turtles, but the worst was the third, where the same locals threw themselves on the turtles, screaming, splashing, people who in fear and anxiety threw themselves into the water and formed a brutal scandal. Barges that came in with more people and almost passed over you. Anyway a real chaos, that the only thing that if it is true is that you see the turtles 100 percent and they pass very close, but make no mistake, I doubt that they like the regrettable spectacle offered by humans, they are only there because they constantly feed them to get close, they are incredible animals that the shame is that no one there respects them correctly. If you want to live a beautiful and respectful interaction with the animal this is not the place, from here you leave completely altered and in my case, with anger, to see how the tourists go completely from the directions of the guide and do not stop touching and harassing the turtles and nobody does anything.