Straight flowin' on a boat on the deep blue sea...

Today was awesome.

In overcast skies and angry seas, we took a boat from Village Cay in Road Town to a tiny island called Marina Cay. On board were Stacy and I, Michelle (English Teacher), her husband Clint, Andy (Secondary Principal), Vanessa (secretary), Bess (Spanish teacher), Jaeda (school fundraiser), her husband and the ship's captain Richard and their son, Ryan.

Destination 1: Marina Cay. We docked at the small yellow dock on the far left and snorkeled from the dock in the center of the bottom of the picture.

There, we snorkeled from a crumbling concrete dock out into a channel. We saw a school of bonefish in the 8lb range and a huge jellyfish. Beyond the channel the bottom rose towards a shallow flat of acres of dead coral. A few years ago there was a bleaching episode throughout the entire Caribbean. No one knows exactly what killed the coral but it was extremely widespread. There were, however, patches of living coral which served as an oasis for any nearby marine life. We saw some amazingly colorful fish.

Stace and Michelle

Stace and Lollipop

Ryan the 5th grade first mate preparing to tie us off at Marina Cay.

Not wasting any time...

I found a conch. It was much larger than I imagined them to be and was extremely colorful.

Ryan with the conch. They are quite tasty but we let her go.

We snorkeled east toward the dock where our boat, named 'Ro Boat' was waiting. Stacy, myself and two of our new friends from South Africa; Clint and Michelle, dove under the dock and were confronted with a literal wall of fish. I have no idea how to estimate the amount of fish that were schooling around us, but think of the show Blue Planet, when a diver is engulfed in a swarm of tiny fish and disappears within them. That's what happened. The fish all seemed to move as one, millions of them, and you could swim through the shoal for as long as you could hold your breath and not emerge from within until you surfaced for a breath. It was incredible.

Near the dock the water dropped off to about 20ft. We dove to the bottom and found a flounder attempting to hide in the sand. The only way we found it was by startling it, otherwise its camouflage would have kept it completely invisible.

One of the many islands we boated past today.

Clint, with a giant house in the background

Lollipop the water dog.

We boarded the boat and took it to Cooper's Island. Upon docking, we hopped onto the beach and took some seats at the only restaurant on the island. An hour later and after some delicious island cuisine and a few beers we were back in the water headed along the shore of Cooper's Island towards Cistern Point; a small, rocky island a hundreds yards off shore. Our captain, Richard, wife of Jaeda who works at Cedar School, said it was some of the best snorkeling in the BVI.

The restaurant at Cooper's Island.

On the way to Cistern Point we saw thousands of reef fish, two octopus and a group of squid. There was another gigantic school of small fish which we swam through. As you swam through them, they would leap out of the water over your back. If you stood up among them, hundreds of them would swim straight into your legs as they frantically tried to escape the dozens of larger, predatory fish constantly hounding them.

Reaching Cistern Point, we were rewarded with amazing coral formations and some fish we had never seen before. Most of the fish were ridiculously colored with neon blues and greens and electric, almost glowing patterns of colors that you would not think even exist in nature. The current carried us away from the rocky island and into about 30ft of water. Clint and I made the dive to the bottom a few times and got close to the huge coral gardens which stretched beyond as far as we could see. We also saw a cruising Tarpon pass beneath us.

Cistern Point.

Soon afterward, we made the long swim back to the Ro Boat which was moored offshore. We climbed aboard and made the short trip back to Tortola, sunburned, tired and content after such a great day.