Day 4 – Marc Riccione

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First on the agenda, we had breakfast at Mango cabin, which includes John A., Noah, Robert W., and Brock. After breakfast, we went down to the dock to split up into our dive boats, the Sea Monkey and the Sea Dragon. On the Sea Dragon, we nautically drove to Ginger Island to scuba dive. Gazz briefed us on the importance on this dive using the white board to draw the coral reef. He told us this was his favorite place to dive because there is a big possibility of seeing sharks. He also told us this was going to be our deepest dive at eighty five feet. On the dive, we actually did see a shark. Then we saw many other big fish like red banded parrotfish, yellow tail snappers, and triggerfish. The coolest thing we saw on the diving expedition was a French angelfish. I really liked seeing this fish because it is very elegant, beautiful, and surprisingly, very big. This dive was the first dive I had ever done that had a strong current which made it significantly harder to swim. After the dive, right when I got on the rocking boat I immediately began to feel sea sick. Beeca told me to look at the horizon while Doc Gruninger told me to drink water to feel better. I was also told to jump into the ocean which helped a little, but it was very annoying because of the salt water kept getting in my mouth. So I went back to the boat again, I was gearing up for our second dive for a coral reef on a different island when I realized I had to vomit. I dropped my scuba gear and walked to the side of the boat as fast as I could to upchuck. While my friends scuba dived, I hurled four more times. I learned today sea sickness is one of the most miserable things a human can experience. While we were docking, I crawled on to shore which Beeca wasn’t too fond of because of safety concerns. After that we had lunch on the beach, and I didn’t eat much because my stomach still felt bad from the boat. Doc gave me permission to miss out on our next activity because I felt exhausted. I slept for a hour and fifteen minutes before preparing for Mass to go with everyone in the Jesuit marine biology group. The Catholic Church was alone on this hill and looked very beautiful. We went inside and had a great mass. After mass, we met the Dive BVI team at the restaurant in the Baths National Park. I had Maui Maui which tasted fantastic. Dinner was definitely a highlight of the trip because everyone was having a great time chatting with each other. After dinner, we watched fire dancers that were extremely talented. At first, I thought I could do some of the stuff they were doing then they whipped out these chains with fire attached to the ends of them, and I changed my mind. Even though I got very sea sick, I thought it was a great day.