It's great to be back in the USVI. I lived in St Thomas when I was 20, and came back with Nico when he was about 8 - so many good memories.
Nico and I came to St John with my friend Judy for friend Emily's wedding. He and I hiked to Leinster Bay and then swam to Waterlemon Cay. It was his first major snorkeling adventure. We snorkeled around the Cay, saw so many fish and coral. When it was time to swim back he asked me to take his mask so he could swim a faster crawl stroke. As I followed behind him all of a sudden a large barracuda, about 4 feet long, appeared following behind his kicking feet. I was worried about the barracuda so I swam next to it so it would go after me instead of Nico, but it was fascinated by Nico's kicking and was relentless. I was very happy when we both made it to shore safely.
Now about 10 years later we sailed past Waterlemon. As I texted Nico about it he wrote back that I had to go back and snorkel. This time snorkeling there was equally amazing: many hard and soft corals, schools of blue tang, yellow and black stripped Sargent Majors, about a dozen colorful parrotfish, a French angelfish, funny shaped trumpetfish and trunkfish, tunicates, sponges...And no barracuda - yay. This one was for you Nico!