Eleuthera Journal, day 5

Wednesday 3/22:

Got up around 7:30 this morning and had one of the cinnamon rolls we got the yesterday at Muriel’s Bakery. They were quite tasty, with raisins in them and a sort of citrus icing. Then headed off to another beach with David in search of coral that wouldn’t be as sandy. We thought that maybe down by the cliffs further south the coral would be cleaner and the water less murky. However, this turned out to not be the case. We still had a very nice hour-long snorkel though, and I saw many exciting fish, including a Spotted trunkfish (which are amusing and cute because of their triangular shape) and some immature yellowtail damselfish. These are blue with almost electric blue dots. Very striking. The more grownup form has a yellow tail and proportionately fewer dots, but still quite beautiful. Also saw many sergeant majors (another type of damsel fish) and more banded butterflyfish. And I saw a turtle, which was very exciting. It was extremely graceful, just sort of sailing along through the water. I was a little apprehensive about disturbing it too much, so I didn’t follow it but just kind of watched it go for a while. I also saw a a number of schools of grunts. They seem to be composed of a number of different species, so that there were a lot of smallmouth grunts mixed in with some French grunts and possibly bluestripe grunts. Some of them are sort of blue with yellow stripes and others are the inverse, so they look very pretty near each other. I also found a number of little fish that are blue and yellow, with the top half being a dark purplish blue and the bottom being a golden yellow. These are immature Spanish hogfish, which are another kind of wrasse. Sort of the inverse of them is the Yellowhead wrasse, which is similarly two-toned, but with reversed colors. Also the blue isn’t as much of an indigo color being more like a cerulean or some such thing.
Here are some pictures of various fishes I saw:
A French grunt:

I didn’t see this many of them together, but here are some schooling smallmouth grunts:

A spotted trunkfish:

I had a fairly lazy next couple of hours but did eventually go for another swim in the afternoon. Saw a lot more of the blue-headed wrasses, banded butterflyfish, queen damselfish, as well as quite large parrotfish, mainly rainbow ones and some stoplight ones, I think. Also saw the queen triggerfish again and some big ocean triggerfish. I also saw another barracuda, although this one was smaller and by itself. It was sort of skittish, though. Another stingray was on the bottom out where it was about twenty feet deep or so, minding its own business and didn’t seem to want to move anywhere. However, when I got back to land, Peggy told me that she and Beth had seen a stingray come in very close to shore and that it was probably still around. I followed the direction it had gone, and sure enough, found it in water that was maybe two feet deep. It had a bunch of fish following it around and it was just sort of moseying along. I felt a little odd lying down on the sand, more or less, in order to be under the water and able to see it, but it was quite something. It had spines along its back in addition to its stinger on its tail. All in all it was maybe three our four feet long. Then I sat and read for a while on the beach, feeling somewhat worn out from two hour long swims in one day. A very hectic life I lead here, certainly. We ended up finishing the puzzle in the afternoon; there were only three missing pieces.

For dinner we went to a restaurant that had been recommended to us by the people who were staying at Brighton Hill the week before us. They stopped by to look for some shoes that they might have left the day after we arrived and mentioned this place. However, it’s very hard to find anything here on the island without directions, especially since street signs seem to be rather lacking. David and Mary had gone out in the afternoon and found the place, though (it’s up near Governor’s Harbour) and made reservations for 6:30. So off we went, stopping briefly to see where the old Club Med had been (apparently it was damaged in a hurricane and closed). Along the way we saw a stunning sunset over the Caribbean. The restaurant, called Tippy’s, was extremely good. I had a margarita, which wasn’t as strong as the one we’d had at the last place, so I ended up having two. Beth and Mary split some conch fritters as an appetizer (I tried one, which was very tasty) and then almost all of us had lobster tail, which had been caught fresh that day. Very very very tasty. And for dessert Beth and I split mango and pineapple crepes a la mode. Extremely yummy. Mary, in a shocking change from her normal preference, had a brownie cake. The question was raised as to how many drinks it would take before Peggy would play the piano, or before Margaret would start dancing. She said “You can fill me up, but you’ll have to carry me out”.

After getting back from the restaurant, I finished reading Sherlock Holmes and started on another mystery novel that I found here, this one set in ancient Japan. Seems rather interesting so far.