Today, we moved on from the sargassum- and jellyfish-filled waters of Diamond Reef to Cooper Island. Of course, first we had breakfast. Julia doesn’t let us go hungry on this boat! After our Julia-made blueberry muffins, yogurt and fruit, we fed the fishes some leftover stale crackers.

I made this short video of us feeding the fish and birds. We saw the Jacks and Tarpons feeding, and there was also a Barracuda that hung around. He was hoping to catch one of the smaller fish that were feeding. But he missed!

Next up, Cooper Island!

We snorkeled around Cistern Point. This ended up being a fantastic place to snorkel. Actually, I think it was our favorite snorkel spot in the BVI so far this trip or last.

I got up very early (as usual). Remember all the boats that were moored here in the previous blog post? I took a picture of them this morning. Every dot of light over the horizon is another boat. They all have lights on the tip of their masts.

There was still a bit of sargassum seaweed around our boat. See how thick it is? Imagine swimming through that! Yuck! And this is nothing compared to the amount that was all over the area last night.

Time to head on out of here. Jeff relaxed and read up on the bridge as we motored on over to Cooper Island.

After we moored, we decided to jump in and snorkel. Rob took us over to the Point with the dinghy. We first jumped in on this side of the Point. But then, at Rob’s advice, we went around to the backside of the Point. Wow! That was even better!

So here is a view of Cooper Island as we approached it. Well, ok, it’s actually a view of Cistern Point, with a bit of Cooper Island on the left.

Here I am just in the water off the dinghy.

Of course, one of the first things we saw was a Blue Tang!

This is a neat photo of 3 fish – two juvenile Parrotfish and one Surgeonfish.

This is the Yellowtail Damselfish adult. The almost glowing blue spots really stand out in this photo!

This colorful Parrotfish was one of a handful we saw swimming around at Cistern Point.

Here’s something new! We’ve never seen this particular fish before. It’s a Bermuda Chub. Apparently, they are not confined to the waters of Bermuda. 🤔 The spots are pretty cool.

This next fish we have seen before, and I included it in one of my previous posts. It’s the Orangespotted Filefish. Funny how it’s “spotted” but what you really notice are the stripes. These also have that “unicorn horn” sticking up from their heads. They can raise and lower it at will. Not the best photos, but good enough to identify this fish.

This is a funky looking sponge growing right on the rocks. Kind of scary looking!

About this time, Rob swam over and suggested that we go to the other side of the Point. So we climbed back into the dinghy and moved to the backside. Wow! He was right – this side was great! The water was very clear, there were tons of fish, and there were multiple layers (depths) of coral and rock. The varying depths let us see more types of fish.

We were SO lucky to see a graceful Eagle Ray as soon as we jumped in the water from the dinghy. Jeff had good eyes and spotted it. We swam with it for a bit until it disappeared into the sea. Here is a great video of the eagle ray.

These two larger fish are hovering at a cleaning station. If you look closely, you can see the smaller fish cleaning them.

And here’s another crazy looking fish! It’s the Scrawled Filefish. Those blue lines on its body look like they are just glowing.

I thought this purple coral looked really interesting…

Now this is an intriguing couple of photos. The dark fish in the second picture is a Bar Jack that was shown in the previous blog post. As a reminder, here is that picture. As you see, it’s a silvery fish with a blue stripe on its back.

But… this picture below shows a dark fish – and that’s also a Bar Jack! Apparently, they can turn very dark when hunting for their prey. Interesting, huh? Along with the Bar Jack, there is a long Trumpetfish in the picture.

Since this backside of the Point has deeper water, we saw a number of different larger fish swimming through. Usually, there wasn’t a chance to get a good photo of them. We got this Tarpon, though. Those are the fish that are always hanging out under our boat everywhere we go.

Finally, there’s a cute Sargent Major fish who seemed to be separated from his school.

Time to get out of the water and head back to the boat for lunch. What a great snorkeling spot this is!

Today, Julia made a Mahi Mahi Caesar salad. Haha! You can hardly see it under all that shredded cheese. 😆 I like how she incorporates pomegranate seeds in so many of her dishes.

Ahhhhhh….. time to relax and enjoy the afternoon – until we jump back in the water later today.