The caves, and Cooper Island Beach Club
Today we struck out for some caves that Uncle Greg knew about for some good snorkeling. Actually, although the caves were cool and kinda freaky, the good snorkeling was around them, not IN them. That's because the caves were in basically a giant pinnacle rock, so all the outside walls dropping down were covered in coral, and there were some really cool coral formations around it, too.
The cave that we went into was dark (imagine that), so we took waterproof flashlights, but it was a little scary not knowing what your legs might brush against unless you happened to be shining your feeble light right in the right spot! It was fun in an adrenaline sort of way though, and it turned out that all that adrenalie was for nothing, since we found nothing scary in the cave at all except for a few spiky sea urchins in shallow enough water to be bothersome.
Outside, though, we found all kinds of new sea life and lots of color. I don't know if it's because the water is significantly deeper, or the walls of the rock get more sunlight, but the colors here were some of the most vivid we saw on the whole trip. My favorite moment was when a big crab, probably bigger than my fist, came towards us on a coral ledge waving his claw menacingly. He was so cute! :) We also saw a gray stingray near the floor and I tried to get a picture of Jesse with him, but a big school of blue tang decided they'd like to hover directly over him for like 5 minutes and I gave up.
After finishing up there (too short!), we sailed to Cooper Island to get a mooring before they were all gone, and we were really just in time (got the last one!). The guys went ashore to explore the island while we girls cleaned up the boat a little and then relaxed. You can practically see the whole island from the bay anyway so we didn't miss much.
Tonight's dinner was at the Beach Club restaurant. Jesse or Trey (can't remember which one) got a toe lightly pinched by a hermit crab under our table... lol. And I ordered flaming creme brulee for dessert, and it was delicious except that I had to hurry and scarf it down because it started to rain just as we finished up dinner! Made it back to the boat without getting drenched, though. Tomorrow's forecast is NOT looking good - rainy, rainy, rainy.
