Day 35 – Field Trip – Saturday – 1/5/19

Today was a ‘school field trip’ day, with Emmett as the bus driver.  He’s the nice guy in town who’s laundry business we used yesterday, and today we hired him as a shuttle driver to get us a few miles up the road to a cool, huge cave to explore.  Tina stayed on the boat for some much needed peace and quiet to work through IRS forms, taxes and quarterly payroll while the other 7 took off for an adventure.  The cave was (almost) all natural and just 100ft off the road.  It opened down some stairsteps into huge cavernous ‘rooms’ and tunnels with stalactites and stalagmites.  There were also signatures from visitors 130 years ago that came from as far away as Virginia and Maine. The cave went far enough back into the island as to be 100% dark when everyone turned their flashlights off – and then we found the second entrance with a rope ladder up a small shaft and out in to the forest.

After the caves, Emmett had recommended to go snorkel in the little lake (salt pond) down the path from the cave.  It was the most amazing place.  So many seahorses everywhere!  If you were still they would curl their tails around your finger.  Way cool.  There were lots of brittle stars (small long-legged starfish) moving quickly on the bottom.  It was like a time-warp version of reef snorkeling – likely caused by fewer than the normal number of ocean predators.  So amazing to find this place from a local…it’s easy to see on satellite images but the idea of snorkeling there is not on any tourist map that we’ve seen!

We rafted up the 2 boats for another dinner together… we had just gotten the grill going when the front arrived, drizzle and rain began, winds clocked 90 degrees or more, boats threatening to wrap around each other’s anchors….time to end the raft up…in the rain…with the engine on…with the grill going….mike starts scrubbing the decks (cause that’s what you do on a boat when it rains and both you and the boat need a bath)…while flipping burgers (in the heaviest downpour)…while also collecting fresh water from the decks.  It was quite an eventful 30mins of multitasking.  Then the rain passed, there was never any wind, the boats settled out and we enjoyed a lovely dinner of our burgers in Bliss’s cockpit.  Another fun day with new friends!