MORE SNORKELING!!!!! But first, we met the resort cat this morning, named Friday. She's really sweet and cute:
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| Rolling around in the sun |
Today was our trip to the Low Isles, which you can see from shore, but are about 8 miles out to sea (compared to the outer reef from the day before last, which was 28 miles out). The Low Isles offered a much different environment than the outer reef, with tons of soft corals and more hard corals. The water there was much more shallow, but unfortunately, there was a bit of cloud cover and the water was a teeny bit murky. We still saw a ton of stuff - turtles, parrotfish, giant clams, groper, anemones, clown fish, reef fish of all kinds, and even these two huge batfish!
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| Black trevali under the boat |
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| Batfish |
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| Soft corals |
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| The butt of a six banded angel fish |
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| Our sailboat, The Aquarius |
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| The Low Isles |
Before lunch, we took a quick walking tour of one of the islands and there was a local population of bridled turns that were the coolest birds I've ever come across. Here are some in flight:
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| Bridled turns |
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| Nesting bridled turns |
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| Up close |
There was also an osprey couple on the island and the nest they make is simply massive:
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| Through the trees to the osprey nest |
While on board during lunch, the skipper threw some leftover shrimp into the water and attracted a black tip reef shark!!! I tried to get my suit on as fast as possible, but I was just moments too late and missed swimming with it. Biggest disappointment of the entire trip, honestly.
I didn't take my camera on our second snorkel tour (because I was too busy hauling on all my stupid gear before jumping in with the shark), but we didn't see too many different things from the first trip. Still we saw cool stuff :). Andrew actually made a friend on the second trip - a little yellow pilot fish. It was about 2 inches long, all yellow with black vertical stripes and a very quick swimmer. Andrew twisted and turned and tried to loose him, but he wouldn't budge. We actually all had a good laugh in the water about how cute it was. And then Andrew found out how to get rid of it…by grabbing and sliding next to me and then the pilot fish became MY friend! I thought he was great, so he stuck with me for about 15 or 20 minutes. He swam right under my chin the entire trip; it was very cute! Then, as soon as he bonded to me, he bonded back to Andrew. We have no idea what happened to the little guy when we got back to the boat…in deep water. I hope he made it back to the reef.
On the boat ride back, we actually caught the wind perfectly and sailed the whole way. It was just a great experience.
Tonight we decided to eat in. We each have little kitchens with just enough amenities to get us through a meal. We bought some fresh fish…at a gas station…and then grabbed extras at the grocery store and grilled at our hotel. SOOOO yummy. And it feels so great to be cooking!
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| Lamb chops, marinade for the fish, green onions and half a hot pepper :) |
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| Fish defrosting in the sink |
By the time we ate, I forgot all about taking photos, as usual. We had a great dinner though and are sad that the trip is about half way over at this point. But we still have tons to see!!!
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