Location: Il Fourchue
The morning started with a coffee cake and grapefruit breakfast in the harbor Gustavia. After eating, we took off for the less populated and more placid Il Fourche, a place with beautiful scenery, a great view of the sea, and an even cooler dive site. After lunch, our research groups set out for the dive site. It was a healthy reef on the side of a mini island with lots of walls and caves. This place was clear of pollutants and teeming with life from queen parrotfish to big barracuda. At one point, we swam over a big stingray and didn’t even notice it until its eyes poked out, and it emerged from the sand, hovering in the distance. As I looked up, I could see a small hawksbill turtle going up to the surface for air. When we swam around a big wall, we came across a big grouper hiding behind a sea fan, and we even saw a big Nassau grouper, a rarity in these waters. We looked around to see some barracudas scoping us out, just curious about us as we were about them. Then, in the corner of my eye, I saw a large caudal fin. Tapping Zucker on the shoulder, I frantically pointed in the direction of a hidden cave opening. We quickly swam towards the cave and peered inside to find a large bulky fish. We immediately thought it was a grouper lurking in the shadows. As it turned around and swam closer, we expected to see the underbite of a big jaw, but instead, what came into the light were the puckered and toothless lips of a pufferfish. Even un-puffed, the fish was over a meter and wiggled its way out of the cave to say hi. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture of the Frankenfish, but I guarantee you it was real, and I saw it.