On our fifth day I was one of the many who was not allowed to go on the black water dive due to a negative that could affect the safety of me or my fellow divers. To substitute for the black water dive we went to multiple places. The first stop was NELHA. At NELHA we were taken underneath the building to look at their sea water fueled cooling system. However the problems with the sea water fueling the system was that the building could switch from steamy to freezing quickly.
After NELHA we took a short drive to a local fish farm. This was great for me personally as throughout the tour I ended up liking more and more of what I saw. Through my liking of the tour I am now highly considering becoming a Agricultural Researcher like the tour guide was for the facility. I want to make a difference. I want to make a positive human impact on the world. I could do this through a positive fish farm by helping farm fish and wild fish. I could help research a better fish food, a better way to sell the fish, or a better way to keep the fish. Any would work.
After that we went to a abalone raising facility where we got to touch, learn about, and even eat these slug/mussel creatures being exclusively grown at this facility. We also got to eat the brown grasslike algae that they are being fed. I can say it taste like salted grass. After the abalones we headed back to NELHA to eat our prepackaged lunch.
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After lunch my group headed to take an underwater reef tour in a submarine. On the tour we saw many fish and learned lots of new things from the tour guide. Two rarer sights we saw was a parrotfish, a pufferfish (not puffed up), and two eels. A fun thing that most consider gross was two fish actually came up to my window and proceeded to poop right in front of my window. The tour guide saw this and said that the sand is actually fish poop. This I found very interesting but disgusting. Remind me never to touch the sand around a reef.
Following the submarine and a little gift shop action to get a Hawaiian shirt we made our ways to the fans and headed to a freshwater cave. This ended up being the coldest water I have ever felt before. I jumped in and felt like I was a solid block of ice. Besides the cold I also had to deal with huge and small lava rocks that I couldn’t see cause it was dark. I banged up my knee, shin, toes, and foot a good amount. After a cold and somewhat painful cave swim we decided to go to the nearby beach. This beach ended up being right next a mansion I was told was owned by the inventor of the pacemaker which I found cool. The beach warmed us up and was a nice touch to end the day.
Once again I had a great day with friends and made memories to last a lifetime. I hope for that to continue and I greatly look forward to it. I also look forward to creating a positive human impact by cleaning up a beautiful white sandy beach tomorrow.
