Magical Marine Moments

Yesterday, we had the coolest day.  We went to Foxy's Taboo Bar and Grill for shrimp kebabs and pizza for lunch.  From there we hiked to the bubbly pool where huge crashing waves squirt through the rocks.  (See photos below.). We played in the waves and surf for a while and then hiked back to our dinghy.  On the way we saw a Hermit crab scuttling sideways across the path. On the way back, we waded through a shallow area, about a foot of water, and saw a small reef shark!

We were standing in the shallows and he was swimming around.  He was about two feet long.  So cool.

After we returned to the boat, two couples dinghied up from a neighbouring catamaran.  They noticed our Canadian flag and wanted to say 'eh,' since they were from Cornwall.  We chatted for a bit, and they invited us over for Happy Hour on their boat later.

Carey and I went in snorkelling near our boat.  We saw lots of small fish and Carey followed two stingrays.  I made my way back to the boat after awhile and saw a reef shark right under our boat!  He was about four feet long and just sauntering around.  I videotaped him and then got out of the water. When Carey came back to the boat, he wanted to see him, too, so he took another dive and videotaped him, too.

Later, we dinghied over to the other Canadian boat and had drinks with Shawn, Pam, Andy and Lisa from Cornwall. They had just bought their new 45-foot catamaran, so we all toasted it with champagne.

We dinghied back and Carey barbecued our dinner.  Just as he was serving our steak up, he saw the shark jump at some unsuspecting fish.  With a flashlight, we could see two of them swimming by our back swim deck and underneath our dinghy. Wow, the magic of marine life, right at our toe tips.  Hmmmm, since they are night feeders we won't go swimming tonight.   (For those of you who are worried about us swimming with sharks, the reef sharks are generally not dangerous to humans unless they were in a feeding frenzy because someone had baited them with fresh meat.  We don't intend on doing that.)

The fridge decided to stop working today, so all of our frozen meat thawed out.  Aaarrrggghhh!  The strange thing was that BOTH fridges stopped working.  While Carey tried to problem solve, I cooked up the chicken and marinated the pork for use another day.  Eventually, we figured out that when the domestic battery gets below a certain charge (around 12.0?), it stops sending power to the fridges, because they are the biggest draw.  This saves energy for everything else, but it's not so good for our perishable food.  We turned on the engine to recharge the batteries and, sure enough, the fridges turned on.  Another thing we learned about our boat--the hard way.

As usual at the end of the day, we sat cooling off in our cockpit.  There was a lovely breeze last night.  

After breakfast today, it poured for a while. We lifted anchor around 11:00 and headed for Great Harbour.  It was still spitting, but it cleared up by the time we got there.  We anchored just outside of the mooring balls.  Looks like a great spot in 16 feet of water.

We dinghied in to the Customs and Immigration dock where we pre-checked out of the BVIs so we can leave tomorrow and go to the USVI for a few days.