We arrived in Antigua on 30 June with a band playing at the airport and cocktails waiting after a lovely free upgrade on the plane. It was very hot and I went in to the first bathroom to change out of my jeans and into a summers dress. From Antigua we still had a short flight to Tortola with a stop in St Maarten. It feels like a bus ride with the stops in between on such a short flight! Charlis the taxi driver recognised us immediately as we exited the airport in Tortola and took us to Village Cay Marina to my Dad and Colleen. Simone and Jonny were waiting already too after arriving by ferry slightly before us.
Sunday morning Colleen and I went grocery shopping to stock the boat for the next 10 days. I was impressed at how well this island grocery store was stocked. Three heavily loaded shopping trolleys later we were ready to go back to the boat.
After unpacking the groceries we went to say hello to one of the crew members on Neckerbelle and he gave us a quick tour of the yacht. We were happy to be able to now say that we've been on Richard Branson's boat! (He was obviously not on the boat at the time.)
We left Village Cay Marina (Tortola) and had our first snorkel at Bar Bay where we stopped for lunch. Here we also had our first encounter with lion fish and dad managed to get three which we fed to some lobsters under a rock. They must have been surprised at this Sunday lunch buffet being delivered right to their door!
Lion fish are eating their way through the Caribbean, multiplying quickly with no natural predators in this region and due to their venomous spines, few predators in their native habitat. They are endangering the coral reefs and reef fish and for this reason people are encouraged to capture and kill them or if you don't have the appropriate equipment to do so, to mark the area and report it. Their spines are dangerous to touch, even when dead. My dad has this orange tube from which they can't escape once inserted and uses a Hawaiian sling to catch them.
From here we sailed to Long Bay, Mountain Point where I lost my hat. The wind grabbed it off my head so quickly, I had no time to grab it back! Dad turned the boat around to try and get it but with the swell it sank very quickly and we couldn't find it. Oh well.
It was at Long Bay where we also went for our first night snorkel. An interesting experience snorkeling in the dark with torches.
Monday Simone and the guys had their first scuba dive at Mountain Point while Colleen and I went for s snorkel. We then continued on to Eustatia Island which we started calling "Google Island" as it was briefly owned by Larry Page, co-founder of google.
Below is a video of the first dive. You can also click on the vimeo link for better viewing.
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