Today was Good Friday and sadly it was our last full day at Caribbean Blue. Luckily the weather at the house was absolutely perfect so we were able to make the most of it. We started off the same as most mornings, coffee at sunrise then breakfast of eggs, bacon and raisin toast from Island Farms and delicious pineapple jam from DaPerk. This was the first morning where we were all able to just stay put and not have to get in the car at all. We had stocked up on everything the day before, since we knew most businesses were closed for Good Friday. It was a great relief to S and I that we did not even have to make our, what seemed like daily, quick trip to the store.
As soon as we finished breakfast J and D hopped in the kayak and headed back out to Levi Island to try and spear some more lionfish. S and I caught up on a little laundry, then lounged around and enjoyed the spectacularly beautiful morning.
As soon as we finished breakfast J and D hopped in the kayak and headed back out to Levi Island to try and spear some more lionfish. S and I caught up on a little laundry, then lounged around and enjoyed the spectacularly beautiful morning.
After a few hours the boys returned from their kayak trip with five lionfish and a lobster. There was only a few days left in lobster season so they were glad to get one more before it was too late. After lunch we decided to go for a "family snorkel" and check out all the rocky areas around Caribbean Blue. You are not allowed to spearfish that close to shore, but since the lionfish are invasive and that tends to be where they frequent we have always assumed that rule does not apply to lionfish so the boys brought their spears just in case. Just as we were getting ready to get in the water a giant school of jacks and blue runners came tearing by. They had come by a couple times already that morning so this time we jumped in after them to take a closer look.
We swam after them for a little while watching them dart this way and that, the eventually they moved on. We poked around a bit, sometimes heading out deep and sometimes moving closer into the shoreline. The snorkeling is not as spectacular as some of the Atlantic beaches we go to, but there was still plenty to see. It seemed that the jellyfish population had definitely multiplied since we our last snorkel on the Caribbean side a few days earlier. There were little jelly's and sea walnuts EVERYWHERE, they were impossible to avoid. We stuck with the theory that the little ones did not sting and the larger, potentially stinging moon jellies were at least few enough that we could avoid running into them. We basically just plowed through the little ones trying to keep them off our faces, but every now and again I would feel a very mild short lived sting on my legs and I did my best to just ignore it and try not to acknowledge that some of them really did sting.
Eventually we made it to an area where there was a giant, jellyfish free, bait ball stretching about about 25' in either direction. The bait ball was pretty amazing, all those little tiny fish seemed to form one giant organism that slowly moved among the rocks and parted when you swam through. S and I spent at least 30 minutes just floating in the bait ball watching all the tiny fish. I cant really describe why we though it was so amazing but it just was.
After we finally started getting tired of swimming around in the bait ball we decided to work our way back to Caribbean Blue. S and I slowly started swimming back while J and D followed, keeping a close eye out for any lionfish that might need eradicated. Not long after I spotted the largest lionfish we had seen yet and pointed it out to D. He speared it and I dove down to make sure there was not another one hiding under the same rock. When I surfaced a jellyfish just happened to be right near the surface exactly where the collar of my top was. It went right down the front of my top and when I went to try and dig it out I smashed it against my chest. I had doubled up that day with a rash guard and a shorty wetsuit so my top was really tight and there was not much room to reach in and remove the jellyfish delicately. I was definitely getting stung and it very painful. Eventually I got it out and yelled I've had enough of these $@#$#@ jellyfish I am out of here and swam back as fast as I could. S saw my entire freak out and relayed it to they boys, who had been diving for lionfish, then headed out after me. She struggled along trying to keep up with my frantic Adrenalin and pain fueled hi-speed swim and made it back not long after I did. By the time I got close to the house the pain had dulled quite a bit, I think that my frantic swim had thoroughly flushed off the sting. As soon as I got to shore I struggled to strip off the shorty and rash guard then ran to the house for some ammonia. I coated the sting in ammonia (after-bite) chugged a Sands Light and went back to the water to meet S. By then it was pretty much down to a very dull stinging sensation but there was no way I was going to get back into the water and swim back to where we left the boys. They were still nowhere to be seen and we assumed they were probably still fishing where we had left them. S and I figured they needed us to come back with the kayak to pick up their fish so we grabbed a couple more Sands Light's and headed off to find them. They were in the exact same spot, as we had suspected, so we picked up the two lionfish they had speared then slowly escorted them back to Caribbean Blue.
We all lounged around for the rest of the afternoon and sipped cocktails on the deck while enjoying our last evening at Caribbean Blue. D cooked us up lobster and sauteed lionfish along with yellow rice and broccoli. After the sun had set we took our chairs out by the water to do some stargazing. I don't know if I have said this before but the night sky on Eleuthera is just as fabulous as its beaches. There is so little light pollution on the out islands that the stars so vibrant and bright you can see things you never would at home. We spend hours staring at the sky mapping out the constellations and waiting for the occasional shooting star. It was a bittersweet night for us, being our last at Caribbean Blue, so we were doing our best to slow time as much as possible. We were excited to be moving to a new place on the Atlantic side the next day, but we loved CB so much that we were sad to be leaving. DaVilla was our next destination and it was our big splurge so we were really excited to see it, but moving also meant that we were down to a week left in our trip and we knew that week would come and go way too fast. We were all getting sleepy but putting off going to bed so it just wouldn't end. Right when S and I finally decided we just could not stay up any longer I saw a little green flicker in the water. I pointed it out to the others and we all scoured the water too see if we could see it again. Then all of a sudden there were hundreds of them, just little green flickers all around the water right by the surface. They would start then stop then a bunch would flicker all at once. Finally one got close enough to shore where we could get a better look at it. It looked like a little green spiral spinning around it the water, sometimes it would be clearer and other times it would look cloudy. J ran and grabbed a flashlight and we shined it into the water. We could not see much but what it looked like it was the sea walnuts producing the green light. In the daytime you could see this iridescent area in their bodies that looked like florescent rope lights weaving around up and down their sides. We decided this was the same thing, only at night they glow green. It was amazing, you could see little green dots everywhere. The show lasted less than 5 minutes then it slowly faded out with a little flicker here and there, and by the time 15 minutes had passed it was all over. It was the prefect little send off after two blissful weeks at CB. S and I felt guiltless about calling it a night after that but D and J stayed up sipping whiskey for another hour or two still trying not to let the night end. They never did see the sea walnuts flicker again.