We Owned The Day

Yesterday was a full-day sail on the Bravura, a large sailboat that we chartered for the day.  It was great -- a crew of two and the eight of us. 

The day got off to a slow start, as there was no wind.  We headed under engine power the whole way out to Cooper Island.  Toni was getting seasick, but managed not to barf.  Once we tied up off Cooper's Island, she felt a lot better.  The highlight of the trip over was spotting a sea turtle just outside of Yacht Harbour Marina.

I got to skipper the dingy for the day, although TJ did get to run it for a roundtrip.  I first dropped off the girls for snorkeling by the Cistern, a rock formation sticking out of the channel.  As I returned with Anne and TJ, the girls were fighting hard against the current -- they had gone out to the side of the Cistern, and could barely get back.  It was so strong that Maddy had to take a float back out to Toni (the only non-USA swimmer of the group).  So we learned from their mistake and stayed to the north of the Cistern, where the current wasn't very strong.

The snorkeling was great -- lots of beautiful coral and fish.  Some of the girls saw a squid, while I saw a tightly packed cluster of black fish with purple edging.  The school was moving as a pack, with little room between -- very different than the solo behavior of all the other fish I saw.  There had to be 150 fish tightly packed in a small confined diamond like space.  Carol stayed on board the Bravura and talked with Captain Bob.

After hauling ourselves back onto the dingy (no easy feat for big guys like TJ and I), we headed back and had a gourmet  meal on the boat.  The website advertised that the lunch was quite good, and it lived up to its billing --  first course was cold pumpkin soup, followed by a great salad and then mango jerk chicken on rice.  Washed down with a couple beers, it was quite good.  

From the boat, I spotted a very large (six foot) fish that we determined was not a shark.  Instead, I noted it is a BAF -- "big ass fish."  Somehow the name stuck with the teenagers.  We also saw schools of thousands of little silvery fish (aka lunch for the big fish).

I jumped off the side of the boat, and then we headed on the dingy to the Island beach.  Carly swam all the way in (and back).  The beach was sleepy and very relaxing.  When we got back to the boat, we spent some time jumping off the side, which was probably the second most fun part of the day.

The most fun came when we headed back to Virgin Gorda.  The wind had picked up, so they unfurled the sails and we cruised back under wind power.  It was nice going slicing through the water, enjoying the sun.  (The only downer was that we got some sunburn from enjoying it too much).  It took nearly two hours to get back, but it was so enjoyable the time flew by.

It was great having our own boat for the day, and well worth the price of admission.