Attacked! Location: Salt Island - Tortola Island, BVI Day 20 by Wayne & Karen Brown

Salt Island is "T-shaped". It gets its name from its three salt ponds. Salt ponds are shallow ponds filled with salt water. When the water evaporates the salt crystalizes and can be scraped off the ground. Salt is an important food seasoning and preservative. In the old days the sailing ships would stop at Salt Island to buy salt.

From Yorktown we can see one of the salt ponds just behind the beach. Along the beach are some shacks and a small house. Only one person lives on this island, but we don't see any activity, so he must be off the island today.

From Yorktown we board the the small boat that we used when we snorkeled at Peter Island on Day 15. It is windy and the sea is choppy, so we have to choose a snorkeling spot that is calm. We go to the island just to the east of Salt Island -- Peter Island.

Even though we visted Peter Island before we should see something different because we are going to another side of the island. We are anchoring at White Bay to explore the reefs here.

We anchor close to the beach. There is no dock here. There are also no buildings. In fact the beach is completely deserted! Our boat is anchored in water so shallow that when we hop off the boat we can walk to shore! We snorkel along in front of the beach but all we see is sand. The reef finally starts at a rocky point at the far end of the beach.

The reef is patches of corals growing on the rocks and boulders underwater. It is a pretty reef with different hard and soft corals. Because this is a shallow water reef the colors are not filtered out. This reef is probably a young reef that is affected by rough seas. We can see some pillar and staghorn corals that have been broken, but are growing back. Even though the reef is in shallow water we don't see algae growing over the corals as we did at Coral Gardens (Day 17). That may mean there are lots of algae-eating fish living on the reef.

We do find a variety of pretty reef fish swimming around the reef. Some of these fish we have told you about before during our expedition. One pair of fish that we see swimming around are butterflyfish. Butterflyfish are about as big as your hand (about 3-6 inches long) and are some of the prettiest fish on the reef. They are called butterflyfish because they swim from coral to coral like a butterfly flies from flower to flower. With their pointed mouths they eat worms and other invertebrates hiding in the corals.

One of the weirdest butterflyfish we see is the four-eye butterflyfish. The four-eye butterflyfish has two black and white "bulls-eyes" at the base of its tail. These are fake eyes to fool the bigger fish. The real eyes are covered with black lines to hide them, so the only "eyes" that are easily seen are the fake eyes. A big fish sneaking up on this fish from behind would actually be coming in the front. This way the butterflyfish can see the big fish sneaking up and swim away before the big fish can catch it!

These four-eye butterflyfish protect themselves using fake eyes to fool the other fish. Fish have lots of ways to protect themselves from being eaten by other fish. Some fish may think of us as big fish that may eat them. These fish hide in cracks and under rocks and corals as we swim by. One small fish, about butterflyfish size (4-6 inches long), does not hide from us as we swim up to him. When we swim towards him he does not even swim away. Instead, he swims right it up to us and attacks us! He bangs into our masks and savagely bites on the arms of our wet suits! This fish is a sergeant major. Fortunately sergeant majors do not have any big sharp teeth, so he can't hurt us. It is funny to watch him as he tries to scare us away.

Sergeant majors are fearless little fish. They are called sergent majors, not because they will fearlessly attack like an army soldier. They get their name from their black and white stripes, like the stripes an army major has on his uniform. We are being attacked by a male sergeant major. He is guarding and protecting a patch of tiny eggs.

Here's what is going on: The male sergeant major makes a nest of algae on the side of a rock or coral. The female lays her eggs (hundreds of tiny pin head-size eggs) on the nest. As soon as the female is done laying her eggs the male chases her away. The male is now the guardian of the eggs. He stays by the eggs until they hatch and chases away any animals that get too close to his eggs...even us!

People always ask us if we have ever been attacked by anything in all the thousands scuba dives we have made around the world. We get attacked all the time. Fortunately the only animals that attack us are the fearless and funny little sergeant majors!

It is now time for us to return to the Yorktown Clipper. We will be leaving the British Virgin Islands and returning to St. Thomas in the United States Virgin Islands because we are coming to the end of our expedition. Stay with us for a couple more days as we review what we have learned and interview our student explorers to learn what they enjoyed about the expedition.

Best Fishes,
Wayne & Karen

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Salt Island, BVI. Behind the shacks on the beach we can see one of the salt ponds that give the island its name.

We are exploring the reef at the rocky point at the end of the beach here at White Bay beach, Peter Island.

The reef is patches of hard and soft corals growing on the underwater rocks and boulders.

Notice the large fake "eyes" near the tail of these four-eye butterflyfish. The real eyes are hidden by the black stripes.