Toucans, Tarpons, and Temples: The Reef

Last Thursday while the boys were in school Amy and I rented a double kayak from Paul, who runs the boat rental shop at Caribbean Villas just down the beach from us. We paddled about 1/2 mile out to the reef, tied the boat to a buoy, put on our snorkeling gear, and jumped into a different world. It was such a fantastic experience, exploring the beautiful corals and amazing fish that inhabit the reef. Astonishingly, we've heard from many locals that this section of reef is significantly degraded and unhealthy. To our untrained Seattle snorkel-novice eyes, it seems pretty amazing, but it makes me wonder what it must be like at the more pristine reaches of the reef farther north (I've heard Mexico Rocks is a good place to go).

In addition to the many different species of colorful fish, we saw a huge school of what I think were blue tangs cruising along the reef, and shortly afterwards we saw two reef squid! At first I thought they were cuttlefish, but after doing a bit of research online, we're positive they were squid. Still, seeing cephalopods of any type is quite a treat.

On our way to the reef

Sergeant majors

Bluehead

Diving down among the staghorn coral

School of Atlantic blue tang surgeonfish

Our outing was pretty quick--we only rented the boat for an hour--but was mostly intended as a reconnaissance to see if it would work with the boys. Since it went pretty smoothly, we felt confident taking them out on Saturday, and it was even better than our trip Thursday! We stayed at the reef for two hours, and saw many of the same species, but we also saw an enormous southern sting ray, a giant hermit crab (in a CONCH! I couldn't believe how enormous this animal was!), an eel, and two different spotted eagle rays. The eagle rays were definitely the highlight of the outing. The second ray was swimming straight at us, slowed down, seemed to hover for a bit, turned left, and then turned on the afterburners and was gone in seconds flat.