After the boat walk-through where Olivin explained everything about the boat and then the Captains’ meeting for Dave and JP, Robin and I picked up fresh bread and apple tarts at the French Deli (on the same spit of land as the Moorings). We headed out before eleven.
The Indians
Our first mooring was at the Indians, several tall rock outcroppings surrounded by reefs in front of Pelican Island. It was our first time picking u a mooring ball (hooked with the gaff and then tied off with two ropes. The water was comfortable with our rash guards on, no need for wetsuits. A huge barracuda hovered beneath our boat and I made sure to turn my rings towards my palms, not to provoke it. Lots of sea fans and coral and several schools of blue tangs and of course parrot fish and small tropicals. The boys discovered an underwater passageway beneath the reef and pronounced it “so doable” and went back for the GoPro to film the adventure. It was a three-yard passageway about ten or twelve feet down, so it pushed the limit of breath. There were a half-dozen boats moored when we got there but only one by the time we left.
From there we motored to The Bight on Norman Island where we picked up another mooring in a harbor with perhaps thirty other boats. We got our snorkel gear together and launched the dingy for an adventure to the caves where we tied to a dingy mooring line and swam into a tall narrow cave with bright pinkish-purple coral covering the rocks. It was a strange feeling to swim from light into darkness. The second cave was larger and perhaps a hundred feet long, so the interior was in darkness and shallow enough to stand (no coral there). On the way out, we saw schools of hundreds of tiny fish silhowtted against the light. The best fish were perhaps forty feet off the shore where the water was perhaps thirty-feet deep. Schools of yellowtail and sergeant majors and parrot fish floated in sunbeams all around us. It felt like we were floating in an aquarium. Unfortunately, I twisted my ankle as we pulled Steve back into the dingy and although I was able to put weight on it when we got back to the boat, the ankle swelled up like crazy.
On the way back to the boat, we motored around Willy’s bar, a two-masted, two-story pirate boat lit up with white Christmas lights. We had ocktails on the deck watching the sun set over Saint John and Parrot Island. Dinner was chicken cooked on a grill on the side of the boat.