Percy Chubb's former playground + cool fishy stuff

Ahh, Super Bowl Sunday...here's a nice joke to acknowledge the event:

A man had great tickets for the Super Bowl near the 50yd line.

As he sits down, another man comes down and asks if anyone is sitting in the empty seat next to him.

"No," he says. "The seat is empty."

"This is incredible!" says the other man. "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event, and not use it?"

"Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. My wife was supposed to come with me, but she passed away. This is the first Super Bowl we haven't been to together since we got married."

"Oh ... I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else, a friend or relative, or even a neighbor to take the seat?"

 
The man shakes his head. "No. They're all at the funeral."

Maybe next year we can all say...

Go Cowboys!

Anyway,

I've written about this place before in the blog, but here's some background information about it...like my dad always says: "It's a poor day when you don't learn something new!"

Percy Chubb purchased the land many years ago and built a home on top of the hill just east of Little Harbor on Peter Island. He was the 3rd generation owner of Chubb Corporation, an international marine insurance company. The home appears to have been abandoned for the last 30 years or so and is in severe disrepair. I don't think it will be resurrected from the dead...another casualty of the climate, termites and plant growth. I am not sure who owns the property now, but it's too bad it hasn't been rebuilt...the view from here during it's early years must have been spectacular. The expense and effort that went into the construction and development of the property must have been tremendous. 

Fruit pods of a tree on the property, possibly a tamarind tree?
They are about 12" long with red on the inside and white seeds .

Sue and I are looking at a portion of the ruins of the house

Toddy and I are standing in the doorway to what
must have been the great room...the floor and beams
holding it up are so rotten, we don't dare go in!

Here's what we were after...hermit crabs. We found 4 really
nice ones to take back to grandson Tomas for pets.

Yes, Karen was present and accounted for on this trip...she took the pictures!

The following pictures are of some of the tile murals that are still left on the buildings.

This mural is still fairly intact, showing various flowery stuff

This one has been damaged by vandals. It depicts a
unicorn or horse with rider and other animals. There appears to be a
devil or bat-like creature being crushed underneath.



This was on an outbuilding, with some tiles of fish



Speaking of fish...here's some of the recent pics of things that swim under our boat:

This is the extremely rare variety of the yellow tape eel!
Ok...so here's the truth...it's a yellow
marker used to show locations of the fish below...

A lionfish that belongs in the Pacific Ocean...not in the Atlantic...where it
isn't welcome. We mark them so official lionfish
killers can do their job. We have a video on the link, but
only those not in the US can view it...something to do with copyright
 infringement

A spotted drum, adult version, about 8" long

This is a blackfin tuna, about 24" long. It
jumped right into the back of our boat, surprising
Karen and me. It appeared to be a friendly fish, so we asked him/her
to stay for dinner and wine.

 

Mmmmm...a Caribbean spiny lobster. We've invited his
relatives over for dinner, but decided to just say hi to this one.

This is an example of a non-swimming version of stag-horn coral.
Not very friendly looking either.

A southern stingray, searching for food, with his buddy
fish (barjack ?) waiting for something to get kicked up.

A couple of flamingo tongue snails dining on a common fan coral, slowly.

We all agree, it might be agony to put your knee on a sea anemone