Ian Has A Great Last Snorkel, Turks and Caicos, Feb. 17, 2012

Blue Spotted Coronet Fish

Burr Fish

We have an afternoon flight so Ian has time to go for one more snorkel before we leave. I have opted to do the packing up. Ian chose to go over the area we had visited the other day to the east side of Smith's Reef. He came back pretty excited and downloaded his pic's right away.  Since I wasn't there I'll let his pictures tell the story. There is a video of a rock beauty and one of the coral teeming with life (squirrel fish, etc.).
At the end you will see our good bye pictures.

For our last lunch we dined lagoon side at Shark Bite. The grouper was excellent and enjoyed with a Turks Head Amber. We wandered back to the Queen Angel Resort and said good bye to our friends. Our friendly, kind manager, J. drove us to the airport. What a great guy!

Until next time!

Dance of the Eagle Rays, Turks and Caicos, Feb. 15, 2012

What an awesome snorkel we had today at Smith's Reef! Remember how excited we were to see three eagle rays swimming and feeding together? Well today we saw five!!!! If you had been in the water you would have found it quite funny to see Ian and I lifting our fingers as each one came into view. Five!!! One of the larger ones took off over the coral which left us four to observe. These four started to swim in a circle formation. It was truly amazing. There were problems with the camera and the clips are very short but they will give you a good idea of what we saw today.
We also got a shot of the small flounder near the shore.

Flounder

Later we swam east to another area of the reef that we had not yet visited. We were surprised at the quantity of fish in this area. One large coral hosted schools of juvenile squirrel fish and several other species. Of course, like everywhere else there was a large barracuda present.

Parking Your Sting Ray, Turks and Caicos, Feb. 16, 2012

If it is going to be your last time snorkelling Smith's Reef it should be a good one. The reef did not disappoint today. We had been in the water for some time when a sting ray came in to view and settled next to a coral section. Before long it was on its way and we took chase. I was getting pretty tired but kept up with Ian and the sting ray. Then the size of the ray came in to perspective. It was a good size ray but laying almost hidden in the sand was a much larger one. The ray we were chasing nuzzled the face of the larger one which barely flinched. Then the smaller one proceeded to park itself along side the other. It was quite fascinating and Ian was able to capture it on film.
Ian dove down a few times to see if he could get them to swim together but these two were settled in and did not want to be disturbed. Checking on the surface I could see that there were no people left on the beach and the sun was setting. As much as we enjoyed seeing the rays it was time to go. We have had such a wonderful experience at Smith's Reef.