It's not chocolates, but it came in a large red "container" and was healthier for me! Bob and I were smiling as we motored out to Poor Betty's Reef just a couple hundred yards out of the marina entrance as our new engine purred smoothly! Due to rough seas I drove the tender around (more like up and down!) waves as Bob dove the ledge where he has gotten lucky previously, and in just a few moments he came up and said "Happy Valentines Day Honey!" with my present on the end of his spear. Bob dropped it into the bucket that I held over the side of the tender; next he dropped a conch in the bucket and said "now that we have dinner; let's find a place that you will like to dive and do some photography......."

We headed NE of the marina entrance and found some little rock cays where it was relatively calm, I swam around the largest of the coral heads and found many varieties of coral, above is Stag horn coral, but there was also a huge area of Elk horn coral that sat atop fire coral. My favorite little fish (not shown) are the yellow tailed Damsel fish as they have these little purple iridescent sparkles that just glow, you always find them around fire coral as they know they are protected, also makes them hard to photograph as I sure don't want to get too close to any corals, let alone the fire coral.

This Porcupine fish was swimming along the bottom with a pal, I surprised them (and they surprised me!) but I got a picture of one of them swimming away, it was a good sized one, probably just under 2' long, this is the fish that I mistakenly called a Puffer fish that was under the docks at Compass Cay. I love these guys, so chubby and cute with those big eyes.

This Caribbean Reef Squid was one of 8 that I swam with for awhile, impossible to get a good picture of more than one at a time however. I popped up to see what was going on as all of a sudden I was feeling an increase of surge and waves above me, oh yes...the wind had clocked around and now the Atlantic is starting to break over the reef not far from us. Time to leave. Once in the boat I looked at the surf and said "Buffalo Bob, pray tell, how are we getting through that?... Hang Ten, Kowabunga, Shoot the Curl?" Bob: No problem, I have paddled a board through breaking surf enough times to know how to get through breaking waves, and sure enough, no problem, he waited for a break in the surf and quickly sped through. Once out however I had to be in the front of the tender in order to keep it up on plane (with our less powerful 15hp vs our former 25hp, standing up to time the bounces through the waves (I yelled back..."I don't like this...but I'm glad the boys used to make me ski moguls!" as that is what is was like, Bob driving like he was skiing moguls, and me with bended knees in front doing the shock absorber crunch as needed, it was actually pretty fun! My husband never ceases to amaze me with his abilities and his confidence which is never unfounded.
When we arrived back at the marina we had a call from Sandals asking Bob (Uncle) to come over to teach a windsurfing lesson; so off we went, a fun afternoon with the water sports kids as Bob was teaching his student, a man from Texas, I was helping the staff, my lessons all (kind of) came back to me, and I was hoping that I remembered them correctly. By late afternoon the kids were yelling "I feel it!" Nothing like the thrill of hanging onto that boom and flying across the water for the first time. Best compliment of the day from these kids for Bob "Uncle has mad skills!"