Afloat to the Bitter End

Photos:
1. Emily has just been notified of the presence of the large barracuda.
2. The large barracuda just before he chewed through the steel leader.
3. The Fabulous York Conch Orchestra.
4. Jim and Lara at the Bitter End Yacht Club.
5. MJ and Emily relaxing at the Bitter End.

The next day we got up for our “morning snorkel” at the Caves. Right after we stopped the boat a CLOUD of Blue Tang fish (8” bright blue angel fish types) gathered under our boat and within 30 minutes they had eaten all of the weeds growing off the bottom of the boat! Dad called them the “Blue Tang Yacht Cleaning Service.”

We next motor sailed up to Machioneel Bay on Cooper Island for more snorkeling after lunch. As we stopped, Emily decided to take a lazy swim around the boat on one of the swim rafts while Mom prepared lunch. When Mom threw some celery scraps overboard it attracted a cloud of small fish and one LARGE barracuda (MJ: “What is that really big fish right there?”). Once Emily realized what it was, she managed to get all arms and legs immediately out of the water and onto the raft. Once she found out that there never has been a documented, unprovoked attack by a barracuda, she decided to get her mask and snorkel and try to get a photo of the barracuda, up close. Lara joined her and we noticed that the Barracuda had a rusted hook in his mouth along with 18” of line.

Once all of us were out of the water, we fed him Sardines and eventually worked to catch him (to remove the hook and then release him)! Unfortunately, he bit through our steel leader and now he has two hooks in his mouth. After that excitement, he got tired of playing with us, and left.

That afternoon MJ spotted a fairly large octopus. He was fascinating! As he moved around he would change colors to match his surroundings. We watched him go from brown to yellow to blue to white and once he even had a stripe of white against brown. Poor little fellow was trying to find a place to wedge himself and he backed into a spiny urchin (he turned a blue-green color), then there was a fish that harassed him (he turned white), Jim/Emily poking him (he turned pale white and flattened out). This was very interesting to watch.

We then, motor sailed (main sail up assisted by motor) up to Gorda Sound on Virgin Gorda. Since MJ and Emily like to spend our time underway up on the bow, we don’t really use the jib so we mostly use just the mainsail and the motor to get places. We still hit 5 knots as it is fairly windy. This route had us pass Necker Island, which is owned by Richard Branson (Virgin Records and Virgin Airlines) – very cool houses.

We spent another rainy and windy night on a mooring ball at the Bitter End Yacht Club.

“Joe” - the Conch salesman, greeted us in the morning. Apparently Emily is a Conch Savant! She impressed us (and Joe) by belting out a perfect “blat” on the conch. This sounds like a Welsh War Horn (imagine Braveheart’s Call to War bugle). This was done at 0750 to the delight of the Yachts around us. We couldn’t believe it! To prove it was not a fluke, she did it again – another perfect “blat.” At this point, the anchorage resembled a Prairie Dog town with heads popping up out of yachts all around us looking for the source. At which point, we skulked below laughing!