We swam in the Great Pond Bay again yesterday. The weather forecast said it would be the better of the two week-end days that we weren’t working. So we decided to go, in between projects. But this time, we didn’t do it by boat or kayak. We drove down to the area where the East End Marine Park has it’s administrative offices, walked down the steep, dusty hill to the beach, donned our snorkeling gear and set out right from shore.

The entrance can be squishy with quick-sand-like muck, and the sea grass comes up to the surface when the water is low. I hadn’t swum out from this area in a few years and wasn’t sure about the presence of sea urchins. So I chose an area where terns and pelicans were fishing. There had to be some clearance there, otherwise the pelicans would get stuck in the sandy or muddy bottom. It was about a foot and a half deep. Plenty of room to see ahead and know that there were no urchins waiting to puncture my wet suit or Michael’s skin. Lots of small bait fish zoomed by and we were reminded of the time out at Buck Island with Llewellyn when we came very close to a feeding shark on the north side of the island. But there was no shark this time.

Off we went, out of the sea grass beds and into the clear turquoise water. The current was strong and Michael wanted to head east rather than west, so we’d be going against the current first, then with it on the way back. We swam, not quite knowing where we were going, but were in search of one of the numerous patch reefs teeming with life. In between the reefs there is little for the untrained eye to see. But our experienced sea peepers spotted quite a few large and small living conchs. What a thrill to see their beady little eyes just barely sticking out from under those complex shells! I even saw one digging in the sand. Very cute! There was also an occasional star fish and sea cucumber. Funny creatures!

Finally, I could see a dark patch up ahead and we found a mound of coral with nooks and crannies harboring juvenile fishes, sea urchins, lobsters and puffer fish. There were lots of beautiful damsels, blue-head wrasses and spanish hog fish. We traveled on, discovering a few more reefs until we started getting cold and decided to head back. We came into shore at a different angle, and the water was only about 4 inches deep as we very horizontally approached the beach.

We started walking back up the hill when I heard a splash behind me. It struck me as funny and I could imagine someone (like a little kid or something) unfamiliar with pelicans thinking that a bird had just fallen from the sky into the water. “Look, Mommy! That bird just fell right into the water! Is he okay? Do you think he’ll drown?” So….. I can be a little peculiar. I’m still giggling about it today….

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2008 at 10:33 am and is filed under St. Croix, Terry Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.