Snorkeling: Where's Aerial?

I had never been snorkeling before, it seemed easy enough. You have to swim, breathe through your mouth, and watch out for boats. In the Caribbean there are many places to snorkel and we found some really great places. Using our Go-Pro we took pictures of some of the things we saw as well and made a video.

On Tortola we went to two places,  Brewer's Bay and Smuggler's Cove. Brewer's was amazing underwater. We could see where the reef begins and the beach/swimming area ends. The reef is like a wall, leading into a little underwater city. The reefs look like little sky scrapers and the fish look like commuters. They move in between the beach and the reefs in schools, always staying together, even when disturbed by the occasional pelican plucking his lunch from their group. Which, strangely enough happened to me as I was watching them, the pelicans come from to sky, crashing into the water when they see the schools of fish, I was just a little too close once and almost became a victim of the plummeting.

The darkness from the reef is easy to see from the beach, so you can know where to look for the good snorkeling spots.  Both Smuggler's Cove and Brewer's it is very easy to see where to snorkel at because of all the darkness from the reefs. Smuggler's becomes very difficult to snorkel because the water isn't very deep and the reefs almost come up to the surface. When snorkeling you have to be very careful of the reefs because they are very delicate. They have many protective methods as well. The red coral burns, it is called "Fire Coral". When you are swimming near any of the coral it feels like it is sucking you in a little bit, it is very sharp, so touching it must be avoided. It also takes hundreds of years for it to form, so destroying it really is bad.  There are sea anemones, that pop in an out and when you get close to them they retreat back. They look like flowers and when they retreat they look like the stems without the flowers.

While on Peter Island, the dive shop will take you on a snorkeling tour of a place called "The Indians". This place looks like a bunch of hills underwater and each of them was full of coral and fish. Every once in a while you can see mooring blocks with chains on them. Occasionally we did some skin diving, this is where you swim down deep and hold your breath. When you come back up you blow the water out of the mouth spout from the mask and you can continue snorkeling. At the Indians the reefs are very tall and the water very deep. So Randy and I did some skin diving. I went down 10-15 feet, at least. We saw really beautiful fish, eels, different kinds of coral, and sponges.

Even when we weren't at "The Indians" we snorkeled around Peter Island beaches for fun, mostly in Dead Man's Bay. Randy found an octopus in a jar on the beach when he was picking up random trash and bottles, which there wasn't a lot, but most see trash we found was glass.  The octopus wasn't in the mood to come out of the bottle, but it had huge eyes and looked at us with such intensity and curiosity. We put it back in the water out deep and left it alone. We also found a really cool red sponge and sea anemones and it was amazing that they hadn't been crushed.

All and all this was an experience not to be missed. The video is on YouTube at the link below.


http://youtu.be/poWmt83sgOw?list=UUFQ62MVldEyqRiafBBbru7Q

Wind Surfing: Slippery When Wet

I'm sure that many people have seen this done, it looks so easy. You stand on a board and hold a sail, how hard could that be, right? After falling in the water 6 times I am here to tell you, it's not that easy. There is a very specfic skill set involved in wind surfing.

First there is the surf board itself, you must be able to drag it into the water with the sail and all. Once you get it in the water, obviously the board floats. The sail seemed to be the heaviest part of the contraption and of course this is the part that must be lifted up while standing on top of the board in the water.  

Finally, when on top of the board, your back must be away from the wind. The wind pushes the sail and it helps move the board across the water. The way in which the sail is moved up and down, or side to side determines where you will go. This requires balance, which after attempting, I realized I do not have. I was so afraid of falling that I kept bending, when really standing up straight is the best way to go.

I did this for a couple of hours. Every time I fell off, I got back on and tried again. It was like a fight with the sail each time. The first couple of times of falling off the board I hit the rudder on the bottom and it was really painful. There are many parts of the board that I didn't understand, such as, the rudder and this unusual lever at the bottom (I decided not to mess with it) . All the falling off the board made it more difficult because it became really slippery, but I kept going.

The man instructing me, (who was very nice) had an extremely thick accent and it was difficult to understand him.  He spent a lot of time helping me but it was pretty fruitless. I did sail it all the way to the end of beach, but I couldn't sail it back and fell off trying to turn it around, so I had to swim it back to where I started.  It was a humbling experience.

Tortola- British Virgin Islands

I must preface this by saying that I had never been the the British Virgin Islands (BVI) or anywhere in the Caribbean before this trip, so my experiences there may have been unique and not "the way it always is". There will be a few instances where it will seem like mixed reviews, but for the most part I would go all over again. I'll begin with the no-brainer, the climate. It's wonderful. Warm, there is water everywhere.

There is nothing poisonous, that I know of or have yet discovered. Randy's friend Michael told me he couldn't think of anything either and he's lived there awhile, and in the islands around his entire life.  The trees have amazing fruits on them, breadfruit, mangos, tamerind, coconuts, everywhere there is fruit. Everything is pretty much edible (although, the breadfruit did not taste so good). It is a garden of Eden. The beaches are beautiful and I have never seen such clear water. There are small lizards everywhere you go, but they are not dangerous and they usually just run off.


We went to a fantastic bar named Quito's, where we ate Conch Fritters. They were delicious. I had never had it before and conch has the texture of clams.  There was live music at Quito's and there was a lot of people coming in off boats. It was a fun place with a lot of good food. One important thing to point out is the service. Most of the service in the BVI isn't exactly what Americans might be used to, by that I mean you get back what you put in, I don't mean in tips. While dealing with the servers, waitresses, and bartenders, treat them nicely. They really don't have much personality unless you strike up a conversation with them. They don't work on tips like Americans do, the tips are usually included in your bill, people in that area are very friendly when you talk to them, otherwise it is their job and not everyone likes their job. At Quito's they were much friendlier than other places and once you've been to the BVI for a couple of days you just get used to it, but at first it's disorienting.

There are boats everywhere for sailing, you can rent them easily, or you can hire someone to sail out on one with you. There were ads everywhere and for a price you can sail. The most fascinating part of being down there was the people that live here frequently commute on ferries and some people live on their boats. They can't imagine how interesting that is to someone who lives near lakes that are far to large to do that and they also can't imagine that water being fresh. The salt water is so nice to swim in though, it helps with the floating. Personally, I'm not super found of the saltwater because it's kind of gross when it gets in your mouth and when it gets in your eyes, it stings. I'm not used to this because my whole life I have only swam in fresh water, but it's amazing to go under the water and see the coral. It's just like little mermaid, it's a whole kingdom underwater. We practiced snorkeling in the pool, I had never been before, so we thought it was a good idea to practice. We also used out Go-Pro in there. The camera is able to take pictures at 193 ft underwater, which is further than I will ever take it. The snorkeling was fantastic, the best place we went was named Brewer's Bay. There were other little bays as well, like Smuggler's Cove, but the reefs got very shallow and it was hard to snorkel. Brewer's bay was ideal, until we went to Peter Island and Snorkeled at a place called, "Indians", which was out in the ocean and you had to take a boat to get to hit.
Warning: Everything is expensive except the alcohol. Which includes some very tasty rum. They have these drinks called "painkillers" and they do exactly what they say. This is the main drink on the island and it contains nutmeg.  There is also nutmeg in a lot of drinks, I haven't seen so much at christmas time and I would never picture it being used in such a high frequency for drinks.

The cabs here are really expensive, so we decided to rent a car, which is probably more dangerous than anything because they are American cars that drive on the left, once again it's disorienting until you are used to it. . There are a great deal of large hills as the island is mountainous. If you stay in Tortola more than a couple of days it is a good idea to rent a car, especially if you want to explore, as I said before cabs are expensive and the cab drivers ofter times pick up hitchhikers. That is really the main form of  transportation on the island, hitchhiking. There are lots of people that just stand on the side of the road and point to where they want to go.

We saw many charming places like the shell museum. The shell museum was amazing. It was completely full of shells and things people found on the beach. There were more shells than I could imagine. There were also signs painted on driftwood. They also make "Smoodys" there, yes, that is how they spelled it. The restaurant made them out of all sorts of fruit and at lunch they serve Conch. We did not eat there because there were too many things to see on the island.

There are a myriad of things I did not even touch on, there are chicken everywhere on the island. Even as the plane touched down, they were all over the airport and you can hear them crow all times day and night. Several of the hotels are either set in the jungle or on the beach. There are a hundred beautiful things to see and experience, it's worth a trip.


Some of the places we went:

 http://www.sugarmillhotel.com/
 http://www.peterisland.com/index.php
 http://www.bareboatsbvi.com/quitos_gazebo_tortola.html
http://www.tortola-beaches.com/Tortola-Bananakeet.html