We woke up early so we could eat breakfast and go hit the grocery store before check in time for the boat. When we arrived to pick up our boat they had new sails for us. Beautiful! It took a while to get them on, but we were on our way around 1:00 p.m. The wind was perfect today, we practiced our tacking a couple of times and each of us took a specific job and we had that 45 foot boot ripping across the ocean in no time. We didn’t even use the engines today—only to moor the boat.
After about four hours of sailing and just laughing and goofing off we moored at Marina Cay. It was a couple of hours before dinner so we all grabbed our snorkeling gear and jumped in the water. I thought I would be bummed I didn’t grab a scuba tank and some gear from the boat dock, but I didn’t even need it. Everything to see is only 8-12 feet deep. At that moment we just didn’t realize what was lurking underneath--
As soon as we jumped in we noticed we were surrounded by a small group of fish. It was a bit weird, but then when we saw that there were about 6 tarpon surrounding the school of fish and darting in and out with their mouths wide open we all made like a seal being chased by a great white and were back in the dingy. I have never seen four grown men move so fast. It took all of about 2 seconds. At the time we didn’t know they were tarpon, they looked more like barracuda. After regaining our composure, we jumped back in and snorkeled for another hour and a half. There were so many cool fish that I can’t name them all. The water was about 80 degrees and you could swim in it forever.
After dinner on our way back to the boat, we noticed a gigantic yacht that was engine powered. On the back of the boat there were literally 3 huge lights submerged to the rear of the vessel. It created a large area of water that was lit up and we could see 40-50 tarpon. We decided to take the dingy back to the yacht and ask them if we could snorkel right behind their boat. Now picture this, black water, pitch black night (there are so few houses and buildings here that you can’t see anything except the gazillion stars up in the sky.) So as we were loading in the dingy Nate and I ended up being the only ones willing to go in the water with these 6 foot creatures. It was a reenactment of JAWS! Now I have been on two night dives in my life and never had a problem, but for some reason being surrounded by 40-50 fish that are 4-6 feet in length was a bit disconcerting. But we braved our fear, counted to three together and made sure we went in at the same time. After a while Nate Richin’s saw that we were having so much fun he dipped his head in the water from the boat and checked it out. The picture explains it all. I thought that I was going to die laughing.
What an incredible day. It is nice to be with Dad, Nathan and the gang and catch up and just relax and enjoy. The islands are green, lush and beautiful and the weather was perfect today. I think this trip is just going to get better and better. (Although there is still some guilt for leaving Gale at home!) Till tomorrow!
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