Gavin in Fairyland. :)

Today we did our first SCUBA diving in St. Lucia. After a nice breakfast including some of the fresh papaya we got from the farmers, we headed up to Soufriere again to meet up with Chester, the dive master at the Hummingbird Resort who was highly recommended by Diane. We and three other people went out on his small motorboat to the dive site Piton Wall, which was a large underwater wall of coral and plenty of sea life to see. I was REALLY excited that I was able to equalize both of my ears right away with no trouble, the first dive I have ever done that I haven't fought with my ears for the first 20 minutes! I guess the practicing in the airplane and driving through the mountains paid off! :)

A goofy SCUBA selfie. :)

Chester carried a spear gun to kill lionfish in the reef. On the first dive he probably killed around five of them! He used a small dead one to bait an eel to come out of its cave. We also got to see lobster hiding in holes in the reefs and a fish that was completely camoflauged by the reef until Chester got it to move. He also picked up some spiny sea creature that had tiny suction cups on it. He put it in my hand, then had me turn my hand over and it was suctioned to my hand! He also tried to get me to hold some crazy underwater giant-daddy-long-legs-looking thing, but I definitely kept my distance from that one... :)

Gavin at Piton Wall.

Me holding the spiny suction cup thing.

Chester spearing a lionfish.

After the first dive we took the boat back to the beach for a surface interval. On the way he cut up a delicious fresh grapefruit for us. When we reached the beach, he offered us some fried fish as a snack - it was seriously the best food we have had yet on the island! It was battered with spices, hot pepper and flour and was deep fried - REALLY yummy!

Enjoying some fresh grapefruit! Immediately after this pic, I peeled off the top of my wetsuit and almost didn't catch that my bikini top was coming off with it...

Our second dive was Fairyland. Fairyland was a drift dive - the current softly pushed us along the side of a long wall of coral and sea life. Once again we killed a bunch of lionfish. This time Chester speared some larger ones, so he cut off all the spines underwater and put them in his pocket to carry to the surface to cook! If we would have stayed around after the dive, we would have been able to taste some fried lionfish! But we had to leave right away since we had an appointment for our first kitesurfing lessons!

Gavin in Fairyland! :)

Giant bowls!

Me among several residents of Fairyland.

We went back to Sandy Beach for the lessons. We met up with our instructor, and he first showed us how to fly the kite itself. Gavin and I both crashed the thing many times, and it wasn't really all that windy out, so it was hard even for the instructor to get it back in the air! After a couple hours, I finally had stopped crashing the kite, or letting it pick me up in the air and drag me across the beach. :) I was able to do the figure 8s of turning the kite. Then we dried to do body drags in the water. I couldn't quite get the hang of it and ended up with several nosefulls of water as well as several times crashing the kite. :) Our instructor finally had me hang on to the harness behind him and get dragged along. It was surprising the speed we could get even with the low wind - it was enough to almost pull off my bikini bottom; I had to squeeze my thighs together really tightly to keep from losing it... :) I didn't get to do any more drags, because the wind died down too low, but I got a good start. Too bad it will probably be another year before I get to do it again. :)

I desperately try to keep the kite out of the water...

Having some success now. :)

Water up the nose, sand up the ... other places. :)

After the kitesurfing lessons we relaxed and had rum punch at the Island Breeze and waited for the sunset. Then after our busy day, we headed back to the villa for a relaxing night of leftovers, Piton and reading in the fresh mountain breezes.

 

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