Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Adventures and "Treasure" on Goat Island
Had my first night of solid sleep! The squalls that drove us here the previous day continued sporadically into the night -- I had to wake up once during the night to close the overhead hatches for our cabin in order to stop the rain from landing on my face -- but the bay sheltered us from the rough seas and so there wasn't much rocking of the boat, making for a good night's sleep.

Goat Island lives up to its name -- goats are its only permanent inhabitants. In the morning I dug out the binoculars and spotted a few of them in the greener patches of what is otherwise well-worn and seemingly barren volcanic rock. From the boat you could occasionally hear them braying to each other.

Vanessa wanted to go treasure hunting again, so we ventured forth from the boat and headed to the shore. A much rockier beach, made up of black volcanic sand mixed liberally with rounded pebbles of bleached coral. I saw that another squall was coming in, so I guided Vanessa up to the only shelter on the island, a small cabin, probably used by its owner for storage with an awning that we stood under while the storm passed.

While there, Vanessa found what she thought was a pretty shell -- but so did it's owner, a small hermit crab who was still in residence. Vanessa shrieked and dropped her prize, and she watched its more nervous occupant slowly eek his way out when he thought was the coast was clear.

Squall over, we climbed down, looking for "treasure" -- primarily small conch shells and pieces of well-worn coral. There were some spectacular pieces of large-ish brain coral, but the island is a conservation area and so we only took a couple of small pieces with us as souvenirs.

Erika found a good snorkeling area in the south-west part of the bay, and soon Ariane joined her. Ariane fetched some small sea fans and a couple of choice shells. Erika found a sand dollar and brought it back for Vanessa. An argument ensued over exactly what a sand-dollar is -- I think it's the left-over remnants of a sea-urchin, while Erika and her Father though it was an animal in its own right. (It turns out that they were right).

I finally had the opportunity after a short afternoon nap to try out my new flippers and mask. In the calm waters of the bay flippers = real power swimming. Despite my moustache, the mask held on tightly, and with my contacts in I could actually see things underwater (previously all I could make out on previous snorkeling trips were colourful blobs of colour that could conceivably be fish). Yippee! I chickened out of going to the reefside, but I swam in an area close to the ship and managed to see some interesting fish.

Around 5pm we started to head back to the port of Gustavia.