Week in Review

A lot has happened in the past week or so.

We bought a car from a shady islander. The 2nd time one of us drove it upon taking delivery, we noticed some problems. A thousand bucks and a few days later, the car overheats and died going up a super steep hill. After a cool down and some cable-jiggling, all seems fine...for the time being.

-The pool at lambert has been dark, algae green for the past week. Its literally a pond.

On Friday night we had an adventure brainstorming session with Clint and Michelle. We had been throwing around the idea of hiring some kayaks and taking them to some islands within eye-sight. We hatched the plan to 'yak from Cane Garden Bay on Tortola to a tiny island called Sandy Spit off the coast of Jost Van Dyke. According to google earth, it was just under 4 miles away. 4 miles of open ocean...

A daunting paddle.

This is Sandy Spit. Those are boats on the left. You can walk around the island in a minute.

We eventually made landfall. I'll let Clint explain...

This is how they always stand...gets annoying.

With the wind at our backs and a gentle swell pushing us in the right direction we made it to Sandy Spit rather easily. We snorkeled around for a bit, then hitched a ride back on Clint's friend Andy's speed boat. We returned the kayaks then went snorkeling in about 30ft of water off the coast of some sheer cliffs. We saw some awesome stuff, then were stalked by a massive barracuda as we made our way back to the boat.

Sunday we did some cliff jumping with some friends and were stalked by an even larger barracuda. This time, I was on my back swimming away from it, and it swam right between my fins to within 2ft of my face. I was about to swat at it, terrified, but it turned and headed for Stace. She scrambled onto some rocks to wait the fish out, but it just wouldn't leave. We slipped back into the water and made the half-mile swim back to our beach. The entire time, the 5ft barracuda stayed only a few feet behind us.

Earlier in the day I went fly fishing and caught a juvenile caribbean reef shark. He took my fly as he cruised only a few feet from shore, looking for a meal. As I fought it, I called Stace to drive down and take some pics. She heroically arrived just in time to record the event. I was so stoked.

Caribbean Reef Shark

-On Tuesday, the Underwater Explorer's Club checked out Brandywine Bay but didn't see anything too exciting, except for an octopus. The waves on the north shore were way too large to take any kids there, so we had to hit up Brandywine, which is a grass-bottom bay. A totally different habitat than last week's trip to Brewer's Bay. Later that afternoon, Stace and I took to the water with our friends Ryan and Tim to brave some of the 5-7ft waves. They were the largest waves I've ever seen in person.

As we moved our TV out of the corner tonight to watch it for a bit, we disturbed a scorpion that had made that hidden corner of our room its home. We released her after a photo session.

The apartment search is coming along nicely. On the menu we've got a nice one-bedroom in Cane Garden Bay with just about the most amazing view you can imagine. Its about an 8 minute stumble down a really steep hill to a great beach, good fishing, good bars and restaurants. Its a popular beach, however, and will be kind of loud. We also have another possible place in Carrot Bay that is spitting distance from the water. It's a two bedroom place on a rocky beach in a very quiet area with another great view. We're still thinking about it....

School has been going really well. It was standing room only for meet the teacher night last night, which is a bit of a refreshing change. We've done the egg drop experiment in class, in which the kids had to create something out of a pile of trash I provided that would protect an egg as it was dropped off of the 2nd story. On the line was a homework pass, and I ended up handing out more than I had expected. The kids were pumped.

A popular design including a parachute.

utter disaster...

and sweet, sweet success.

This weekend we are going to 'yak to Guana Island with fellow adventurers Clint and Michelle for a snorkel off of Monkey Point. Also, it's a full moon so we'll do a bit of fishing. We'll keep this thing posted.