Wednesday November 6, 2002 (cont.): From there we went to Sandy Island to do some more snorkeling.
The boat broke free from its mooring in Sandy Ground Harbor during a hurricane and ended up grounded. It was going to be too expensive to get it off the reef and fix it so they took the engine and electronics off and left the boat there.
Thomas also told us that he lives on the hillside above Sandy Ground Village and after Hurricane Luis in 1995 (I think) he looked out and Sandy Island was GONE! Nothing left. After a few years the sand started piling back up and Sandy Island was once more. The little restaurant apparently did not stay in business but it does provide a nice area to sit in the shade when you take a break from snorkeling.
Snorkeling at Sandy Island was good. There were lots of fish and I saw a group of 3 Caribbean Reef Squids. They are so colorful and pretty.
From there we went to the reef off Prickly Pear. This is a huge 10-mile long reef (the reef off Shoal Bay is part of it). Thomas once again filled us in on currents and told us which direction to swim first so that the return trip (when we were tired) would be with the current rather than against it. We wished we had gone here first! Snorkeling was AWESOME! There were bunches and bunches of fish and tons of reef to explore.
After 5 hours on the boat we returned to Sandy Ground Village very happy. I really can't say enough good things about Thomas. I SO highly recommend him to anyone wanting a snorkel trip or sight-seeing trip or any kind of boat trip. He is very knowledgeable and an awesome person. http://sandydeep.ai/ 264-497-2100.
We stopped by Corner Bar Pizza to get dinner to take back to the villa. Absolutely delicious pizza! Be sure to order thin crust if you want because the default is thick crust (what we in the states would call pan pizza). We had a couple of diet cokes while we were waiting - total bill less that $20.
We took the pizza back to the villa and ate it on the terrace. We baked some cookies, watched some tv and went to bed EARLY (like 9:00 p.m.).