Our interesting Caribbean vacation.

Paul B · May 21, 2019

Of course I had to take some pictures of the most boring fish, tangs. They just follow the one in front of them going Doot Da Do, Doot Da Doot waiting for one to poop so they can all poop or eat, so they can all poop again. I can't believe people keep these things an they are by far the most common fish.

At least these guys have a personality and the added cool benefit that they can poison other fish or even arrows. As we entered our little plane, the Air marshal was dipping his arrows in a spotted box fish liver. The rest of it we had for lunch.

Oh I forgot, in the seat back of the plane was a little card that said to inform the pilot if you saw flames coming out of one of the engines. There was a cartoon picture of a guy looking at a fire with his eyes popping out. On the back of the card was the safety equipment that consisted of a raft and a shovel. You can't make this stuff up.

This is our two pools on our lagoon.

This beach, like the others, not one person was loaded with tons of the nicest looking live rock I have ever seen

We didn't realize that she was coming but our Supermodel Daughter surprised us and popped in for a few days. She doesn't mind me calling her a Supermodel nor does my wife. I know that is not PC and some people don't like that for some reason. But I only have to please my family,no one else.

That guy is my friend who came with us.

Chasmodes · May 21, 2019

What a beautiful place!!! Looks like you had a great time!

cracker · May 21, 2019

Hey Paul, good to hear from You !

Paul B · May 21, 2019

Chas, it was great. Cracker, how are you doing?

Paul B · May 22, 2019

In the Caribbean, where I really find the diving as boring as watching paint dry there are very few sharks. I am not sure why but maybe the sight of tangs just puts them to sleep. If you do see a shark there, it is probably senile and looking for an angelfish to administer last rites.

Years ago, I mean like Noah's time there were a lot of sharks. The first time I dove in Tahiti I was amazed. The guy on the boat said you have to time your jump off the boat in between the sharks so you don't jump on them. They also hate that. There were so many of them that I was surprised there were any fish left, but there are.

Then when you get down, the sharks, which are in schools of like 20 just hang out with you. Those are black fin reef sharks and don't bother you and hardly eat anyone, especially Liberals, which seems to give them gas.

In the southern ocean you can see very clearly down to the bottom even at 120' deep and as you get deeper you encounter the Lemon sharks which are much bigger than the black tips. I think they get bigger from all the lemons they eat. :lemo: The black tips stay away from them.

Then the manta rays come in and they are like wall to wall carpets. They come so close to you that they have to lift their fin to pass you. I would love to have a baby of them in my nano.

When I first started diving, here in New York where the visibility is measured in inches I thought the knife was for if you saw a shark, you cut your throat. Here, if you want to see your watch, you have to put it inside your mask and we always dove with one of those "blind person sticks". You spend the last part of your dive cutting your way out of fishing line which is tangled all over the rocks.

Once I was lobster diving with my dive buddy here and we found ourselves up against a solid wall. (you have to swim into the current here because when you stop, you get engulfed in the cloud of mud you just stirred up as we don't really swim here, it is more like a snail crawl on the bottom where the lobsters are)

The mud covered us and we tried to go over it. But there was a "roof". We tried to turn around, but there wasn't enough room. Eventually we backed out.
We later found out we swam into the boiler of a ship that sunk in 1902 which was carrying dates (we didn't find any).

This New York diving is Man's diving and not Sissy, Girly man diving like in the tropics. If you have a lot of experience diving in the tropics, it doesn't count at all as experience here. :huh: Everything has to be done in the dark and night diving actually has much better visibility because you can see farther in the beam of light.

But if you are looking through your beam of light and a shark head comes into view facing you and his head is too big to completely fit in the beam, get your knife out and remove your wet suit hood so you have clear access to your throat.

Reef-junky · May 22, 2019

Really good post Paul

DivingTheWorld · May 22, 2019

Paul B said:
I thought the knife was for if you saw a shark, you cut your throat.

The knife isn't for your own throat. When you see the shark coming for you, you stick your buddy and swim away.

Paul B · May 22, 2019

Oh OK. I thought it was something like that.

Paul B · May 23, 2019

So My friend and I are exploring this private, rocky beach and we come upon this greasy looking stuff. About 10 lbs of it so we both figured it was Ambergris. Ambergris comes out of sperm whales and the whales use it to cover squid beaks so they don't cut them when they poop. (ouch

)

The stuff is worth literally more than gold and is used in the perfume industry. I guess if you want to attract whales but I am guessing. Something like $63,000.00 a pound and we had about 10 lbs. So that may be worth $630,000.00.

I started thinking how many copperband butterflies (and Supermodels) I could buy with that and my face was hurting from my smiling. Then we researched further. It said, if you heat up a needle and stick it in ambergris and it makes white smoke and exudes a weird smell, it may be ambergris. So we got a needle and heated it up. Yep, white smoke and it smelled like melted grease.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be melted grease. I don't know how such a big blob of it ended up high on a rock on this pristine beach, but I am not a bazillionaire.

If there is a X there, try clicking on it

Paul B · May 25, 2019

This was our car. Thats our Daughter in the back

Here she is flying

My main squeeze and I in the puddle jumper.

In one of our private infinity pools.

Paul B · Jun 11, 2019

This guy was there. The other fish stayed away because he is an Ich magnet.

Paul B · Aug 21, 2019

They had the place on the news.

Why Hollywood Flocks to Mustique

Hollywood travel guide to Mustique in the Caribbean — an uber-private private island within St. Vincent and the Grenadines is a haven away from paparazzi.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

MrDellimore · Aug 21, 2019

It is so good to see someone enjoy my home!! I am from Saint Vincent and the grenadines!

I freedive and scuba dive and love the marine life out there! It is one of the reasons I started getting into this hobby!

Paul B · Aug 21, 2019

Adellimore, thank you so much for posting. I love the Islands and have visited just about all of them. We were invited to Mustique twice and I am hoping to get back there some day.
I am sorry I missed you there.