We had some amazing snorkeling here this morning, so after lunch we went back for another round.

Here is the view of Cooper Island from our boat. There were a lot of other boats, but the snorkeling area wasn’t crowded at all.

This time, we went directly to the back side of Cistern Point. And, after we jumped off the dinghy and swam a few feet, saw the below nurse shark. Another lucky find after this morning’s eagle ray! Nurse sharks will wedge themselves under rocks and ledges to rest during the day, coming out at night to hunt.

This is a very short video because the shark didn’t move. So it’s just so you can see it as we did. LOL – you can tell how choppy the water is by how much the video is moving with me.

And this video is a compilation of fish from our afternoon snorkel. Enjoy!

Finally, near the end of our snorkeling this afternoon, we saw this Lionfish just hovering. It was very cool how he would expand and contract his feathery “frills”. Lionfish like to hang upside down like this; it makes it easier for them to ambush prey.

Surprisingly, this was the only Lionfish we have seen in our two Virgin Island trips. That’s good, as they are a very nasty invasive species. They are nonstop predators, eating many, many native fish and can wipe out the reef fish ecosystem. They can eat up to 20 fish in 30 minutes! We saw a nature show documenting how groups of Lionfish will hunt together in a coordinated fashion. Holy cow! That was an astonishing sight to see. They coordinated how they blocked off the escape routes of the smaller fish, then they took turns eating them. Who knew they could do that?

Lionfish are actually native to the Indo-Pacific region, so seeing one here in the Caribbean is not good. They believe Lionfish were introduced to the Atlantic Ocean by aquarists dumping fish in the ocean.

Now, after those videos, how about some pictures? 😉

This is a great photo of a Tarpon. It catches the reflective silvery color that gives the fish its nickname, the Silver King.

We see these orange Reef Squirrelfish all the time. They are nocturnal, so usually you can barely see them because they are tucked away under rocks. However, today we saw a number of them and they were just against big rocks, so we could see the whole fish. Cool!

Here is one of them. the rock above him looks really cool, as well as the orange coral near the orange fish.

Then, nearby under a different rock, there were several of them. It’s funny how this rock also has orange coral next to the fish. But, yes, it’s a different rock. 😉 Interestingly, they possess venomous dorsal spines used for defense. It’s just cool to see the entire body of this fish instead of just the head poking out.

Jeff got some closer pictures of the nurse shark from the above video. In this one, you can even see its eye.

Time to head back to the boat to relax and enjoy the evening before dinner. Tonight, we had duck breast. Yum!

And bread pudding for dessert.

It’s amazing how many things Julia can make – and all delicious!

Tomorrow, we’ll be moving on from here. We’d love to stay longer at this location, but we need to start making our way back to Tortola since we leave in a few days.