Today was a down day waiting for weather. I was glad to have a spare bit of time because I wanted to locate a friend. During the Dive Instructor tests in the BVI I met a guy named Ned. Ned was originally from Dominica but worked at Green Monkey Diving in Montserrat. We had a great time talking and I told him I would stop in for some dives when we made it down his way.

We stopped by the dive shop and wouldn't you know it, Ned had left the week before. The slow season had sent Ned to Saint Kitts, we probably crossed at sea, to work at one of the dive operations there. I was so bummed.

We had lunch at a little restaurant (generous) next door. It is a neat place with lots of intricate decorations and a great view of the bay. The "restaurant" is basically a small shack with a fridge and a BBQ. Our choice for lunch was chicken and ribs or ribs and chicken. We all had the chicken and ribs. The food was good and the atmosphere was great.

Orin from the BBC news happened by and we did an ad-hoc interview. We were the only cruisers on the island at the time and we gave him our best verbal depiction of viewing Montserrat from off shore.

We wrapped up the day with a swim where upon Cindy discovered the Flying Gunards scrounging around our anchor chains. These fish have large colorful wings that they open up to scare you if you get too close, though they spend most of the time digging about the bottom looking for food in the sand. They have little claws, almost like a bat's hands, that they stir up the sub-straight with. They seem to like to hang around the anchor chains because as the boat swings it stirs up the bottom, apparently exposing something they are interested in.