Location: Petit Bayou, St. Vincent
Greetings, family, friends, and everything in between!
Today started with slight rock(ing) in our bed this morning, as we woke up to the Argo cruising along the coast of Saint Vincent. Just before 6:00 am, the staff got Argo moving from Bequia to our spot for the day. We anchored in a small, deserted cove off the western coast of the mainland of Saint Vincent called Petit Bay. We dropped anchor near the entrance of the bay, and we tied a long line to a sturdy tree onshore to help us hold a position in the little bay. After a quick marine biology test with Ben, which obviously went amazing for everyone, we began our day full of water activities. We started with an excursion to Bats Cave. Personally, I interpreted that as the cave belonging to the bats that dwell there.
Also, maybe even Batman? Most of us had not been there before, so we were unsure of what to expect. We soon were dinghied over, fully kitted out in our snorkel gear. We were taken in 3 different groups. In my group, it was me, Elisabeth B, Peter, Nolan, MG, Shuman, Gabe D, and Elder Gabe (Three Gabes walk into a bar). We entered the water and had the cave in sight. The swell was a little rough, so we really had to put some effort into maneuvering to the cave entrance. Once we entered the base of the cave, it very quickly got shallow.
The light began to fade as we spotted the tunnel entrance in the cave that led out of the cave. We slowly swam to the start of the tunnel. Granted, the bats probably don’t see too many visitors, so they freaked out a little bit. So, as we entered, it erupted with bat chirping, almost deafening. Bats began leaving their resting spots and flying over our heads as we pushed through the cave. Through the chaos of what was swimming through that cave, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel (literally). However, the tunnel got very narrow, so narrow that we had to swim in a single file line. The tunnel opened up into a beautiful ravine (as seen in picture 3). We finally ended up outside the cave after our harrowing experience with the cave of bats in Saint Vincent. That was simply the start of our swimming for the day. Once we got back to Argo, we quickly began preparing for our next water activity; scuba diving. Thankfully, Petit Bay is very shallow in water depth, so we were able to just dive off the boat. It was gorgeous (not that the dive site being gorgeous is out of the ordinary). We saw a variety of life, a fan favorite being spotted drumfish. Soon, we were back on deck with our kits off. Still, more swimming was to be done. We were anchored only 50 yards away from shore. So, some of us did some adventuring and swam to shore. Granted, it was just a deserted beach, but it had some cool abandoned structures on shore that Freddy says were part of a failed construction of a hotel. As the sun grew tired, many of us yawned in agreement as we all gathered in the cockpit to debrief about our day and ate dinner together. As the sun set and we digested our dinner, we untied from the palm tree, pulled up anchor, and began our overnight passage to St. Lucia.
Thank you to all the family, friends, and everything in between that have been following our amazing adventure!
Signing off for the final time,
Gabe G.