April
2007
Snorkeling
Today was a day of relaxing. We slept in, I wrote in the boys’ journals (haven’t done that since last August!), we walked to the grocery store and looked at souvenirs. Then we came back, made lunch, took a nap, then went snorkeling. After snorkeling we looked up all the fish we saw yesterday and today, then went out to dinner. It was so nice! I was kind of expecting to find more strange things at the grocery, although Mike did find pork tails. I found that it kind of had the feel of a Canadian grocery, so we felt mostly right at home. They even had Ketchup potato chips and Apple Juice in boxes rather than plastic containers. They must have had about 75 different kinds of tea, mostly organic or herbal. If you’re looking for fennel tea, they have about 5 varieties. 
I did find a mint Aero bar, which was super yummy.
Snorkeling has been really awesome. The first day out I just saw fish. Now I’m actually going out to look for certain kinds of fish. Although we find so many new ones we have trouble remembering what they really looked like when we come in. Unfortunately I have seen a few jellyfish, they haven’t been a problem, but I freak out when I see one (we’ve seen 3 so far). I’m also still having trouble getting scared when I get too close to the coral. Today we were getting buffeted around when we followed the reef too close to the surf and Mike cut his leg (not bad) on some coral, so we had to make a mad dash further out to sea and come back in to shore a different way. Below are pictures of two fish we saw today; a juvenile Yellowtail Damselfish a.k.a. Jewelfish (left) and a Scrawled Filefish (right). As before, these are not our pictures, but look just like what we saw.
Here’s a complete list of what we were able to identify from the past two days.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
- Blue Tang
- Ocean Surgeonfish
- French Grunt (school)
- Smallmouth Grunt (school)
- Sergeant Major
- Bermuda Chub (5 of them followed us all over the reef)
- Stoplight Parrotfish (male and female)
- Puddingwife (initial phase)
- Bluehead Wrasse
- Yellowtail Damselfish (juvenile aka Jewelfish)
- Angelfish (unknown species)
- Yellow Goatfish
April 11, 2007
- Blue Tang (large school)
- Ocean Surgeonfish (school)
- French Grunt (school)
- Smallmouth Grunt
- Bluestriped Grunt
- Sergeant Major
- Bermuda Chub (5 of them followed us all over the reef, again)
- Stoplight Parrotfish (male, female, and juvenile)
- Redbanded Parrotfish
- Puddingwife (juvenile)
- Bluehead Wrasse
- Yellowtail Damselfish (juvenile aka Jewelfish, intermediate, and adult)
- Bicolor Damselfish
- Cocoa Damselfish (juvenile)
- Yellowtail Snapper
- Fairy Basslet
- Spanish Hogfish
- Dusky Squirrelfish
- Scrawled Filefish
- Spotted Snake Eel (rare to see during the day)
- Moray (unknown species)
On our way to dinner tonight we took our usual route around St. James’ church. There was a beautiful smell in the air (kind of like lilac, but there are no lilac bushes around) and we saw fireflies. They are one of the things I really miss living in Edmonton, no fireflies in the summer. It was so relaxing and sweet! Dinner: Cocunut crusted shrimp and satays for appetizers. Mike had pecan crusted chicken and I had Mahi Mahi in a butter caper sauce. Yummy!
