Friday, April 2, 2010

Island Hopping











Megan slept all the way through the night! We all slept well and I woke to the sound of a rooster this morning around 7am. We took it easy this morning and let everyone rest. Brandon & Justin watched “Sherlock Holmes” on my laptop while I sat on the balconey and read my book.

We went down for breakfast around 9am. It was very tasty and while we were there, we put in a to-go order for lunch to be picked up at 11am. Our plan was to take it with us and eat lunch on the boat. We also collected all our table scraps after breakfast and got them boxed up to feed the wild pigs on a nearby island.

We got sunblock and swimsuits on all the kids, gathered our cooler, beach towels, & other supplies, picked up our lunches and started to load the boat. Sandy & Michele stayed on the boat with Megan while we walked back to the dock for one more load. When we came back, Sandy was all wet –she had fallen in while getting on board! Thankfully, she was not hurt and we soon headed out.

Our first stop was the island with the wild pigs. Legend has it that a bunch of domesticated pigs survived a shipwreck by swimming to this deserted island many years ago. Since then, they have flourished and now they beg for scraps whenever boats pull up to the beach. They are quite aggressive and I always worry that one of the kids is going to lose a finger or toe. It’s fun to visit, but I was happy to leave with all digits intact.

Next, we stopped by Thunderball Grotto, but there were already several boats tied up and it looked very crowded, so we decided to try again later. Instead, we kept heading South and went to one of my favorite beaches in this area, which happens to be swarming with wild Iguana’s. We aren’t supposed to feed them, but some of our scraps may have accidently fallen off the boat. Soon we had dozens of spread out in the sand all around us.

We relaxed on the boat for a while and ate our lunches. Afterwards, the boys & I took a walk down the beach to check out some large rock formations. We walked several hundred yards down the beach and found some cool stuff: Conch shells, and old outboard motor, and a strange pile of rocks that was obviously manmade, but had not appearant purpose. Brandon added one more rock to the pile.

We were admiring the rocks when Justin called out, “the boat!”. We turned and saw that Michele, Sandy, & Megan were drifting away from the beach out into the sea! I think Michele could have gotten the boat started and brought it back in, but I thought it would be fun to conduct a “rescue mission”, so we sprang into action. We ran back to the spot on the beach closest to the boat and then swam for it. Brandon raced ahead while I was a little slower with Cameron & Justin on my back.

The boat was farther than it looked, but the water was very shallow and I could stand up almost all the way out. Finally, we got to the boat and took it back to shore. We stayed just long enough to dry off and then struck out again.

Our next stop: Thunderball Grotto, a semi-submerged cave teaming with tropical fish. We tied up the boat to the mooring ball near the cave and I swam in to check out conditions. The tide was pretty high, so there wasn’t a lot of headroom getting in and the current was ripping through, but I found a couple spots that were protected from the current and called for the others to come on in. We had fun snorkeling around in the cavern and then had to swim hard to get back out to the boat.

Next, we decided to head back to Sampson Cay to rest up a bit after a long day. Megan did great on the boat –she is a Caribbean girl for sure! We got back to the island, secured & unloaded the boat, and headed back to the house. Michele, Megan, Brandon, & I went back down to the beach for a while to relax in the cabana.

We enjoyed BBQ Chicken & Ribs in the dining room tonight and now we are back relaxing in the room. Tomorrow, there are some Easter festivities scheduled for 10am. We will probably take the boat out for a while again in the afternoon.

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