When we arrived for lunch, we kind of expected to be eating with the other hotel guests and have to pay for our meal. It turns out the hotel was empty and our host, Raymond, was simply looking for company.

The restaurant was built in the shallow water right on the edge of the renowned reef, with a small wooden walkway connecting it to the shore. It consisted of a small kitchen and bar area, an indoor seating area with a bench table and bench seat, and a covered patio seating area with two bench tables and seats. The bar was stacked with a bunch of books and a couple of photo albums. The tables had plastic table cloths. There was a small table in the outdoor area displaying seashells. There were posters all around showing the different species of sea life, for example, a poster of various sharks, a poster of various crabs, a poster of various lobster, etc.

Lunch was nice. Raymond made us yellow fin tuna (thoroughly cooked) in a sauce that was almost like a gravy. It was accompanied with pasta salad with beets and small pieces of fish, rice, and bread. The appetizer was marinated olives, bell peppers and pearl onions. He also served us a watered down juice. He had asked us to bring wine or beer, so we brought a bottle of wine. Conversation was not easy with his so-so at best English and Christi’s terrible French. He was upset because he had caught some people fishing earlier in the day. This part of the island is a Unesco protected sanctuary and fishing here is a big no-no. After lunch, Raymond gave us some whole fish to bring back to the boat to make for dinner. He is a really nice guy and loves the solitude of this itty bitty town.

After lunch we went snorkeling in the infamous pass that everyone has been raving about. Diving wasn’t an option for us because it is too advanced of a dive. We were expecting the best snorkeling of our lives and, while it certainly was good, we were let down. In this pass, the current pushes you along. You take your dinghy to the appropriate end of the pass (depending on which way the current is running) and you hold on to the dinghy’s rope as you drift to the other end. The current pushes you at a pretty good clip, so there isn’t much chance to sit still and observe. Water clarity was good, but not great. Under the water, the coral wall has a steeply sloped side, almost like the side of a mountain. The bottom is 110 feet down. The coral colors include a few spots of hot pink, which we have not seen before, and a few yellow, purple and black spots, but mostly shades of beige. The schools of fish were quite large, and there was a good variety of fish, but we probably saw more varieties in the dive on the north ocean side. There were several species of fish we have not seen before, and we noticed a lot of varieties of yellow fish. There were some bright yellow needle fish. There were little black fish with white tails. There were black fish with a yellow stripe that swam in duos and seemed to be dancing with one another. We also saw several of those weird unicorn looking fish. And we saw a good number of sharks. There are supposed to be hundreds of sharks in the bottom of this pass, which is the big draw for diving the pass. Here is the hot pink coral.

We snorkeled the pass twice, then opted to go and snorkel in other areas of the reef. In the other areas we tried there were some interesting coral formations, but not a lot of color. There were not many fish, but a good number of the ones we saw were really big.

After snorkeling we headed back to the boat to make a fresh fish dinner. We looked at the little red fish with their big, sad eyes said to each other “I’m not cleaning it. You clean it.” Since neither of us wanted to do the deed of cutting the heads off, we settled for frozen pizza and cookies instead. Guys, frozen pizza is really lacking out here.