AMAZING AQUATIC ADVENTURES (#9)

We’re anchored off Tavernier which is a name I’ve always thought was pretty cool. They even had a sunken treasure museum here when I was a kid. I like the alcohol reference too. And it even rhymes with “have a beer”. Our view of the shoreline is the typical rear view of houses and docks that’s given me an anal real estate fixation. While staring at the shore, we noticed these “big boned” people in florescent wet suits snorkeling. Once they’d left (for lunch I imagine) we thought “What the hell” and dinghied over. (The Captain’s figured out how to keep the outboard running. He works the choke while I continually squeeze the rubber ball on the fuel line intake, necessity being the mother of all inventions. A new fuel line is “on the list”). We dove in and discovered what we first thought was an artificial reef but realized was a dump. A couple of toilets, some kitchen cabinets, an old frig and an ancient car bumper stared back at us. Someone had recently done a home renovation but the fish didn’t seem to mind. They were everywhere. Huge purple angelfish, even huger pink and green parrotfish, a large grouper that had “eat me for dinner” written all over him, a gaggle of lobsters, the unavoidable large barracuda (there’s always one) and the grand-daddy of them all, a monstrous metallic silver tarpon that continually circled us working his jaws as if to say, “I’m eating you for dinner”. Luckily, I’d read that tarpon don’t eat or attack people and was hoping he’d read that too. We weren’t sure if this was some sort of local fish preserve so we left everything the way we found it (as in “alive”). Plus I had left the spears on the boat. We headed back to the mother ship where we had hamburger helper for dinner. The Captain still regrets our pacifism but I haven’t given it a second thought as I slather more peanut butter onto my saltine. The hard little black pieces are now my favorite part.