Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited

We left about 3. We were going into the waves which was unusual because we were going west. The waves weren’t super big, so it was rough, but not bad. The kids played games ,did a few games on-line and jumped on the front.
It was so rough when we anchored, even after we got the anchor set it felt like we were still underway. The wind was coming from one way and the waves were coming from another. The waves were pouring into the sugar scopes. We got dinner made and talked about our experiences at church. The predictions were correct though and it settled down around 9. Thankfully, or it would have been a rough nights sleep.

4-24 We had a fun filled day. The kids were up early. Cade was so excited to make crepes. He ended up making 3 batches and cooked most of them until the last half batch and Holly took over. The boys paddled over and started to surf. It was shallow reef but they managed to not get hurt too bad and they surfed for quite a while. Kelsey paddle boarded over. The rest of us landed the dinghy with snorkel stuff and went to the small island next to where they were surfing. We started snorkeling from there. We first tried going through the 2 Islands. The water was clearer but it was a lot of current. Kelsey, Kira, and I walked around the island. It’s very interesting. It was rocky on the shore. We stepped up a 3 foot ledge and it was covered in grass. There were even grass hoppers. It was so dry, it felt like Idaho. Then the grass turned to thick grass and was so fluffy you could almost bounce on it. There were flocks of birds flying around. It felt like a scene out of a nature video. As we walked back to shore we found tons of trash and even a cooler. Kira and I decided to fill the cooler with the trash. It was a process and especially hard to carry it back to the dinghy. Cale was not pleased that I wanted to bring it on the boat to throw away.
We came back to the boat around 11 and swam. There were rays under the boat. We also practiced our back flips off the dinghy. Then, we had some down time. Cale and Ryan went to check out another snorkel spot. The kids swam and tried to all stand up on the paddle boars. They weren’t successful.
Our next adventure was loading up and snorkeling. It was so good! You could see where there used to be a submarine trail and big blocks that were completely covered up. The whole area isn’t maintained anymore since an earth quake in 2020. We saw a huge barracuda. The best snorkeling was near the rocks that poke up. Lots of fish, cool coral passage ways. There was also some old ship parts spread around. It was a long snorkel, over an hour for sure.
We kept going around the island but we’re to heavy to make the tight pass between the island so the kids and Holly and Ryan jumped off and walked the beach and then swam to back. Once we got back, they wanted to wing foil, but it got rainy and story. It’s been so fun to have Holly and her kids with us. They are so helpful.

4-25
Cole, Aiden, and Cade were up early and over to surf for a second day. The surf wasn’t as good as yesterday but they tried. I went with Kira to the island with a trash bag and gathered up all the trash and more that had washed up overnight to bring back to the boat to dispose of somewhere down the road. Once back, we started getting ready to dive. Holly and Ryan got Aiden ready and did a dive with him. I had a migraine so laid down while they were gone. We went next. Ryan dinghied us out to the spot and while he was helping us with our stuff he fell in. Holly came and used the end of one of our tanks. She was able to go about half the time.
It was a fun dive. I felt pretty good. I stayed with Kira. We worked our way northwest on the compass and then went back. We found some cool channels. We saw several big black angel fish. They were huge. 2 of them followed me for a while. We saw a little baby remora like fish that thought we were a shark. It kept picking a new person to try and attach to. We looked it up and it was a shark sucker. Cale and Cade saw a barracuda. Cale also startled a ray and I saw it swim away. The corral was really pretty.
After the dive we rested up for a bit. The kids tried to foil behind the dinghy. It will take some more work but they did okay.
Cole and Aiden blew up a wing even though there wasn’t much wind. Holly, Kira, Cade, Caleb, and I took them life jackets and then went out because I kept seeing something on the water. We didn’t figure out what that was so we went towards the shore of the little island and Holly snorkeled. After a while it was just Holly and Kelsey in the water. I was pulling over to them with the others and they said “shark!” They had been looking at a huge ray and Kelsey saw the shark. Once Holly realized it was really there she was backing away but Kelsey was excited and swimming to it. Once we realized she was being serious we all jumped in to see it. It sat on the bottom for quite a while and then swam off. It was about 4 or 5 feet. After great discussion later it was most likely a nurse shark.
We came back and had dinner. While I was cooking I hear Cale say “there’s a huge shark.” Everyone went looking and when I got there he was saying, “Hailey are you seeing this, I think its gotta be a great white.” A few seconds later, someone said, “I think it a shadow.” It was so funny. We laughed and laughed. I think Cale had shark on the brain.

4-26
We got up and went to hike the light house. We weren’t exactly sure where the trail was. We started the hike from the middle of the south side of the island. It was very overgrown and harsh to maneuverer through. We were able to make it, but we had to be very careful with our steps and where we put our hands and feet. It was super hot. Besides the cactus all over there were giant spider and wasps. I was surprised we all made it out of there without major injury. It was a very inhospitable hike.
We found the cut off and realized it was a better trail. That trail went back to the beach where our boat was. All the adults and Kelsey decided to go back that way and the kids brought the dinghy over to us.
The trail from the cut off was quite a bit better. The light house was amazing. It was in pretty rough shape, but we decided to explore it anyways. We had to crawl through a cinder block wall with a hole in it to get to the main building and stairway. The stairs were brittle, but felt study enough to go up. The views from the top were amazing. It was so fun to explore. We could even go to the very top and walk around the outside.
We got back to the boat and had lunch. Then, the kids and Carlson went to the beach to skim and play in the waves and Cale and I situated the boat.