The caves at Norman Island, BVI

We arrive late in the day at The Bight on Norman Island. The restaurants or owners try to put mooring balls in all possible spaces so they can collect their $25-35 dollars per night, making it hard to find places to anchor. We motor close to shore checking the depth on the edge. Someone drives by in a dinghy and tells Matt that a similar sized boat was anchored here before. “That’s all I need to hear,” Matt says. He is determined to angle us in

Deliverance comes to get our garbage and offer supplies

there. We set the anchor and back down the engine in reverse. I stand on the chain waiting for it to go taut so we know the anchor caught. After letting it settle for a while, Matt jumps in to snorkel over it just to be safe. Nothing is more frustrating than a sleepless night worried about the anchor holding (well, actually, there are tons of things more frustrating … identity theft, stolen wallets, losing one’s job, fire damage … ) but you know what I mean.

On Wednesday we get up early and dinghy over to Treasure Point at the entry to The Bight on Norman Island. The locals refer to this as Treasure Island because there are four caves here where the infamous pirate Blackbeard stored some of his treasure. This is the best snorkeling we’ve experienced so far. Perhaps because of the popularity of the place (and because some people feed them), the hundreds of fish do not seem scared and come right up and

Parrotfish

surround us. We snorkel along the wall of rocks and dip into some of the caves. The largest one is long and narrow and goes back about 80 feet. We’re all getting a little freaked out and we’ve forgotten our flashlight. We go back to get it but it’s still a little scary. Occasionally, schools of fish will fly out past us. I keep wondering what is at the end – Jaws, the Loch Ness, Blackbeard’s skeleton? Once we have seen all of the caves and the long wall of rock, we swim back to the dinghy. On the way, I see a sea turtle stick his head up. He’s less than 10 feet away from us and just keeps swimming around. We float near him as I curse myself for not bringing my camera (Joshua reminds me, “Just be here, Mom”). The turtle finally heads to the bottom where we continue to watch him. We absolutely love the sea turtles. We head back to the boat where Joshua, commenting on the caves experience, says indignantly, “There was no gold in there!” I think they were expecting pirate chests full of treasure and gems.

Matt swims through an underwater tunnel. We hold our breath until he surfaces.

We stay in The Bight for two nights and moor our boat at the caves to snorkel one more time before we head out. I have my camera and keep hoping the sea turtle will visit again but he doesn’t. We finish snorkeling and get back to the boat and find a 65-foot catamaran banging against her. The captain moored after us and is right on top of us – his boat is too large for the day moorings. He is trying to fend our boat off and makes it seem like it’s not a big deal (probably because he is a hired captain and has charter people on board). This is a big

The 3-foot moray eel (kind of looks like a large rubber band)

violation of boat etiquette and Matt is not pleased. He mutters something about poor judgment. We get off the mooring ball and head to Pelican Island and the Indians. Another spot with incredible snorkeling. We finally see a moray eel! Someone else spotted it and points it out to us. They blend in so well with their surroundings that they are easy to miss. These past few days have been such a blast.