Swim Vacation Day 6, by Heather

Where were we this morning? It’s hard to remember back that far when we do so much in a day. Ah, yes, Salt Island. We planned a great swim - a one mile loop around Salt Bay - the goal was to swim it twice, the second time faster than the first. We dove in, Busby Berkley style in a peel off the boat. We all made it around once, and some of us headed off for the second round, but the current was crazy and we decided to play it safe. We all worked plenty hard for nearly two miles. No complaints from this crew - they suited up for a hike on Salt Island.

While they explored and hunted down the Geo-cache, Lisa and I enjoyed a lovely dive to about 55 feet just a short distance off the back of the boat. Our mission: come back with conch for fritters. We only found one, and decided to let him be, but on our way back to the boat, we were aggressively courted by two giant remora looking for a ride! We lead them back to the boat for our swimmers to see, but alas, they were not back from their island exploration yet.

A lunch of burritos under weigh as we headed back to the Baths - so glad to return, having missed a shore landing on our first visit earlier in the week. Before we left the boat for our swim, Captain Rich hoisted me up the mast so I could get an eagle eye view of our swimmers in the Promenade’s trampoline.

We swam in to shore and followed the path through the magical boulder field. It was a great thing to do on our last day in the islands. We ended our water sports with a 2+ mile swim from the boulder beach all the way to Spanish Town - current against us. No matter, we dug deep and left it all out there. Everyone was so glad to have made the swim.

As we sailed back to Tortola, Christy zipped me around in the dinghy so i could get pics of our swimmers on our lovely sea-home, sailing off into the sunset.

We gamed over cocktails, stuffed ourselves on a fantastic meal of steak and potatoes. followed by chocolate moose and a slide show recapping the week.

Now the evening’s activities have ended, but we’re all still milling about, procrastinating, not wanting to pack, not wanting to leave. It’s been a special week. We’ve all pushed ourselves more than we could have imagined, found strength in our strokes we didn’t know we had. We’ve seen wildlife, made an historical crossing, and supported each other in swims long and tough. Will declared that what we do is pretty bad-ass, and we all agree that we’ve earned it.

Here are some interesting stats:

We ate 15 lbs of cheese, 8 dozen eggs, 6 blocks of butter, and drank (and rinsed with) 1600 gallons of water. We also swam just about 16 miles, covering Virgin Gorda, Cooper, Salt, Peter and Norman Islands and saw sting rays, a manta, turtles, tarpon and countless other species along the way.

What a week.

Tomorrow we’ll trickle out of Tortola, on our way to homes across the States and Canada. But we’ll be bound by this Caribbean Sea and the strides we’ve made within it.