Tarpon

When Kevin was here, we took him to St. John during his last weekend. First we went to Annaberg Sugarmill Ruins. Kevin climbed a ginup tree to get us some ginups. Then we swam at Cinnamon beach, looking for the wrecked airplane since we thought it'd be something neat to look at while we snorkeled. We didn't actually find the airplane though. I wanted to get a long swim in since Dave and I are doing the 5 mile swim race on St Croix again this year (this weekend!). So Kevin and I decided to swim from Cinnamon Beach to Trunk Bay. This way we also got to show Kevin Trunk Bay without having to pay the National Park admission fee. (Dave and I have been to Trunk maybe 6 times in the past year, but swam to it most of the time. This time Dave drove the car there to meet us.) It's about a 1.5 mile swim from Cinnamon to Trunk - it's part of the route Dave and I did during the St. John swim race in May. We swam across a pretty neat coral reef, dodging between the super shallow areas. When we got near Trunk Cay we found a huge school of little silvery fish - big enough to basically cover our entire field of vision towards the cay. Kevin had a good time swimming towards them, watching them dart out of the way. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a very large grey/silver fish - about four or five feet long. I popped my head out of the water and said "holy moly". Kevin caught a much better glimpse than I did and he decided it was a big tarpon. They are a little intimidating looking! These are pretty big fish and they've got a nice little fin on the top to remind you of sharks when you're feeling vulnerable. It's not unusual to see them, but it still always surprises me when I see a big one. I saw one again yesterday morning while Dave and I were swimming at Coki. Our swim race is Sunday, so send happy swimming thoughts to us!