I watched Brook shoot out into the light. The tunnel had narrowed down to the point where I became stuck. I mean, seriously, I was stuck! Ever have your vacuum cleaner suck up a sock? The engine whines and seems to lodge the sock in the tube. In essence, I was the sock that the current suddenly pushed against. Brook saw my dilemma, and her solution was to pull on my arm. That didn’t help, it just hurt.
I calmed my mind and remembered what we’d been taught. If you were in a tight place and got stuck, the first thing you tried was to take off your tank. I pushed back just enough to get room to unlatch my harness, wiggle it over my head, and hand it to Brook. Next, I took off my weighted dive belt. That gave me enough clearance to worm through to freedom.
Brook asked with hand signals if I wanted to head up, but I figured this was just part of the fun, so I put everything back on. We found a group of sea turtles and followed them to another rock grouping that was alive with fish. It made me appreciate the allure of a salt-water aquarium. Out of nowhere, what seemed like a wall of baitfish surrounded us. There had to be thousands of them. It took my breath away as they darted around us; then suddenly, like a cloud front, they passed. I decided right there we had to get an underwater video camera.
We started to get low on air, so we returned to the boat. Captain Eric let us borrow his camera that also took video under water. We dove three more times. We had fun exploring some old wrecks from World War II. Brook respected my fear of tight places and didn’t make me go inside the boats. Soon it was time to go meet our families for lunch.
◊◊◊
“What’s with the glasses?” Ava asked me.
“My security people gave them to me. It’s a bodycam,” I explained, then took them off and showed her the concealed camera.
“Didn’t they have something more attractive?”
“They gave me several different items, but this was the easiest to grab. I’ll show you my other options when we get back to the boat.”
The girls had picked a place on the beach to eat at. Dad and Ian had suggested the country club, which I thought sounded good, but we got outvoted. Later, however, I was glad because I had a grouper jerk sandwich that was out of this world. The grouper held up well to the jerk seasoning.
Cassidy was the wimp of the group and had a hamburger. I did get her to try a bite of my sandwich. That turned out to be a mistake because she wouldn’t give it back. I didn’t feel up to fighting her for it. That, and I didn’t want to be seen in public, getting my ass kicked by a little girl. The burger wasn’t bad, either.
After lunch, we sailed to St. John, the next island over, where they were having a blues festival. Sophie joined us because she wanted to meet some of her friends. We had a blast. They had a main stage with different bands all day. If you got bored or didn’t like the particular group that was playing, some little bars and restaurants had other bands. There were also booths selling anything and everything. I bought a bunch of different souvenirs for people back home.
Brook found a place playing authentic zydeco, and she and Cassidy talked me into dancing with them. The good news was that everyone was pretty lax about the drinking age, so we indulged in a few island beers. We hooked up with the parental units for dinner. I had the best fish tacos of my life. This time I made Cassidy get her own.
We met Sophie at the main stage, and her two friends turned out to be a couple of island guys who seemed nice. Beans & Fatback, the featured band, was good. Next, they had a group that did covers of the greats like Buddy Guy, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters. Then a woman came out of the crowd and did a spot-on Etta James. She slew
When we got back to the yacht, I wasn’t feeling any pain. I was a cheap date since I hadn’t been drinking for some time. This was the most relaxed I’d been in months.
◊◊◊ Monday March 28
Today we visited Tortola, the most populated of the British Virgin Islands. The dads had decided to go on a half-day fishing trip, and the moms had booked time in a day spa for pampering. Cassidy talked me out of surfing and into going with her and Brook to kiteboard. We ambled to a hut on the beach, and a young guy looked us over.
“Have you ever done this before?” he asked.
Brook and Cassidy shook their heads no, as did I.
“Kiteboarding is a mixture of sports. It’s wakeboarding, snowboarding, windsurfing, surfing, paragliding, skateboarding, and gymnastics, all wrapped into one extreme sport. We’re going to tie you to a power kite and let it pull you through the water. Let me show you a video, and then you can decide if you want to do it.”
