Justin ~ "BVI's"

It was a beautiful, humid night in the British Virgin Islands. Dark blue, cloud free skies made it ideal for lounging outside. I was laying on the trampoline on the front of the 48 ft long Catamaran we rented complete with a great captain and fabulous cook. We had just eaten a fantastic dinner. We could chose steak or fish with mashed potatoes and gravy; for some odd reason everyone chose fish. Well, let me explain: it was fresh fish that we caught and cooked just minutes before. After dinner, we had a lot of left over steak.
“I have a surprise for you,’’ said captain Michael.
I was really nervous he was going to tell us to go in the water, like we had last night. It was dark and creepy, and I was sure something from the depths would come out and bite me. We went straight to the bow. “Are we going to go sit in the front sail?” I asked.
His wife, who was also our cook, turned on the flood lights lighting up a vast amount of water. At this point I had exhausted all my ideas. The lit up water looked like a hole to heaven. It was a perfectly round bright circle with a dark halo surrounding it. Michael took the steak off the plate and chucked it all in the calm water. It looked like a big mud ball until it hit the water. The steak split up into hundreds of smaller pieces and the water instantly looked like a bucket of brown paint was just pored in. In a few seconds, small fish were cautiously coming toward their treat. Once they got closer, they would dart forward and grab a piece, and then dart back into the dark halo. They got to feast on a few bites before the bigger fish came.
“Wow that was really fast!” I exclaimed.
“Not really...Fish cover this whole ocean; you’d be surprised.” As soon as the bigger fish appeared out of the surrounding darkness, the smaller fish faded into the shadows. Some not so satisfied...or smart... fish, such as a few gold fish, were still eating when the barracuda came. Unfortunately, those few gold fish were eaten.
We felt bad, but I finally said, “That’s what happens when you’re at the bottom of the food chain. My brother and I started laughing. I saw some big barracudas swimming in the rim of light. I could see the reflection of their gigantic, sharp, white teeth. I had never been REALLY afraid of going in the ocean at night. I had done it the night before. But now I’ve got to be honest, I'm completely terrified of the ocean now.
More and more fish varying from dollar-sized to baseball-bat-sized came for dinner. However, it seemed as if they were eating each other more than the steak. Almost every kind of fish in the book were darting in and out of the surrounding darkness to feast on anything they can get their teeth into. The only fish that we didn't see was the biggest fish in the book... the tarpon. It was long and blue-silver in color.
After five minutes of watching all the same fish i thought i had seen all the fish that would come join the brawl. So i got up and stared toward the stern of the boat. Then a high pitched shriek tore through the silent night. Panic rising in me I turned to see my mom skidding backwards, landing softly on the trampoline. I rushed forward to look see what frightened my mom. I looked over the edge to see a group giant fish... barracuda’s!
“They’re HUGE” i gasped. “And there going so... slow?” i was confused. “How come they’re so big and move so slow” I asked.
“actually they can swim up to 45 mph” said Michael in his “matter-o-fact voice.”
“What! thats as fast as we can drive on Highway 22 in Jackson Hole!
“Yea its impressive” said Michael. I wanted to see how fast they could accelerate so i went to the stern of the boat. And if you have no clue of what bow, stern, starboard and port is than pay attention to the following sentence cause it might help you a little. Starboard is the right side of the boat and port is obviously the left. I wanted to see how fast they could accelerate so i went too my cabin too get one of the rocks that i collected earlier. my plan was too drop it in the water near the fish. When I gave it too Michael he dropped it in and like a flash of lightning they were gone. When everyone got over the spectacular event i finely i gathered up enough courage too break the silence and said
“they should be called the underwater cheetahs.” that name apparently stuck because thats what we called them for the rest of the trip. That night was the most astonishing and educational night of that night of that year



By~Justin Harris