Day 200, Year 5: Reef Walk, Fishing, Snorkeling
Date: Friday, May 14, 2010
Weather: Still Overcast and Rainy
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
A perfect Chagos day-walking to the outer reef at early morning low tide, trolling our way back home v-e-r-y slowly, stopping to snorkel along the way. There are still weather clouds above, but it was a beautiful sunny day. And we even got some work done in the afternoon after we returned from out little outing.
We took our dinghy and picked up Ed and Lynne about 7:15 am. We had buckets with fishing gear, net bags with snorkeling gear, and of course a backpack with cameras. Mark’s camera was in his underwater case and mine was in a lock tight plastic box. We sped our way almost three miles to Ile Poulet, a small island next to Ile Boddam. It was supposed to be a one-tenth meter low, but it seemed a little higher. But we trodded through the water to the outer reef and then made our way back. It is amazing how the reef off each island is just a little different from the one next door. This was a pink reef. We even found a heart-shaped pink coral formation-the perfect Valentine’s card photo. We saw turtles, another yellow Guineafowl Puffer who sped away as soon as he saw us, seastars, urchins, and a school of the most beautiful neon blue fish, about eight inches long, that raced through the shallow water. After the reef walk, I took command of the dinghy and Mark and Ed put out fishing lines as we started our slow troll homeward. There are four islands between us and Boddam and Ile Poule is the fourth. Ile Du Sel is the third and Ile Jacobin is the second. We stopped at a huge bommie just off Ile Du Sel that had a mooring ball attached. We tied off to the mooring ball and Lynne and I snorkeled while Mark and Ed did some bottom fishing. Lynne and I saw no edible fish on or around the bommie, so on we went. We circled every bommie from here to Boddam on the way home, but didn’t return with any fish. Mark caught a small Bonito that we threw back so he could grow up and Ed snagged something big that got away. It actually straightened the hooks on his lure. Sure wish we could have seen that one. It was almost noon when we got home, fishless but full of joy with the adventures of a lovely morning.
In the afternoon I sanded and re-varnished a couple of places in the cockpit that I was not happy with while Mark made a new harness for raising the dinghy. He also shortened the line we have attached to our dinghy. We have started keeping the dinghy anchor with us and no longer need the long line. He also finished covers for the hard fenders that cushion our dinghy when it is on deck. And I made a velvet-lined bag for Mark’s underwater camera case. It has just been sitting around between uses and we were afraid the lens was going to get scratched. I used a little sail material bag from Roller Tasker in Thailand and lined it with a re-fashioned blue velvet wine gift bag-a holdover from our days in Boston when a blue-velvet wine bag didn’t seen completely out of place.
Tomorrow morning we will try once again to see if the water is low enough to walk out to the ship wreck off the north tip of Ile Takamaka and check out the baby boobies in the process.
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| 100514 Day 200a Salomon, Chagos–Ile Poule Reef Walk |
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| 100514 Day 200b Salomon, Chagos–Underwater at Reef Between Ile Poulet and Ile Jacobin |
