Day 3 - Diving & Such

Today was our first day with Dive BVI. We showed up at the shop around 8am and were introduced to Chris & Jude, the instructors Brock would be training under, and Rudy, the DM on the boat. The “Sea Monkey” – Dive BVI’s nicely outfitted boat – had 3 groups on it…one were a group of 4 guys traveling together, all certified, who dove with Rudy. There was a guy and his son who were on dive 3 & 4 of their open water training diving with Chris…they would be certified by the end of the day. And a couple – Bruce & Susan - from NH who were on dive 1 & 2 of their open water certs. This was the group Brock helped out with . He was just to be an extra set of eyes for Jude…so he followed them and helped out where needed, even grabbing the guy and pulling him down because he was having a little trouble with his buoyancy. I snorkeled and saw a few critters at the first dive site, but only got in the water for a few minutes at the 2nd site…not as great of snorkeling as the first. Just a side note…snorkeling sucks compared to diving. Brock says the diving here is definitely not the best we’ve done, but the visibility is great, and it sure beats Clear Springs Scuba Park for getting some of the DM credits out of the way!

After 2 nice sites – Ginger Steps & Alice's Backside – we went to a local place for lunch – Dixies – and had a great lunch! I had an awesome cheeseburger while Brock had a fish sandwich…both were delish. We headed back to the condo to cool off and to take a little nap. Being on vacation is tough.

Later in the afternoon we finally got the energy to go out exploring some more, and we’re glad we did. We drove down to Spring Bay beach, which is right next to the Baths. The beach was beautiful with huge rock formations and little paths and crevices you could squeeze through to get to the next beautiful area. If you’ve never been to the baths, there are amazingly huge boulders the size of trailer houses (to put it in terms people in TX would understand J). We found the hidden path to the Crawl, a kind of secret beach where we got to have the whole place to ourselves. Brock took some amazing pictures, and we hung around until sunset…it seriously has to be one of the most gorgeous and stunning views in the world.

Then back to the condo to clean up and head to dinner at the Rock, a really nice restaurant that was recommended by a local. It was built near the baths, so there are huge boulders surrounding the backside of the restaurant, and 3 levels of dining. It was a beautiful place, but the food was only OK for the price. Glad we went though…it was a nice little romantic evening.