Day 3, the most action packed and exciting day on the trip so far. The day began bright and early with a two tank dive. This was personally my first dive in the open ocean and it brought new surprises. The ability to see around 100 feet under water was something I have never experienced. During the dives, I spotted multiple butterfly fish and a couple of eels. The blue stripped and four spot butterfly fish were quite common in the ocean. My dive group swam through a couple of butterfly fish schools which dispersed as we approached. The eels hid under the rocks and quickly dashed to find new hiding spots as we swam next to them. The coral throughout the Hawaiian island carries a plate-like structure instead of the colorful and tall Caribbean coral. These corals seem to blend into the rock and often hold many different creatures hiding inside. During the dives, I searched for bleached and damaged coral that could show signs of human impact and stress. I however did not discover any signs which might just have to do with the dive sights selected. After the dives, we headed to the monk seal rehabilitation center to learn about the human impact that we exhibit on this endangered seal. We learned how volunteers observe the seals and how that data can be used to help out future malnourished monk seals. This helped explain to me the importance of volunteers and data(collected by the volunteers) about helping these endangered species. For the remainder of the day, we learned about the black water dive procedure and the different species we are going to see and experience . I am looking forward to this excursion the most. 
