After a slightly chaotic and info-stuffed day, due to all the introductory things we we were told about the coursework and the island itself, today was where the instructors slowed us down a bit and let our minds really sink in to all what we were doing. However my day began hectic since I had forgotten to set my phone alarm the night before which caused Brody and I to oversleep and not wake up until Dr.Gruninger and Mr.Kirby came barging into our room, telling us that had we had 10 minutes to get down to our taxi. We grabbed our things in a mad rush and ran down to the taxi waiting for us. To my relief, our classroom session was much better, and as I said before, my mind got to really dig in to what we were leaning about and doing. Today, this was a presentation on Fish I.D by Sam and Andrew. I really liked how they explained this subject to us,especially how Sam brought more of the whole class into the discussion and how Andrew got into depth on the individual species. With this done, we hopped back on the boat and set off for our dive site on the backside of Ginger Island. When we finally got down there, the water and reefs were so clear and beautiful it was like a fantasy. My group only went to 33ft but still I saw so much diverse life, including a massive ocean trigger fish and a long trumpetfish. This dive was all about setting our minds into the practice of fish ID that was introduced to us yesterday and then also presented in the classroom today. It was a very fun dive in all. After some free time in the afternoon following the dive, we ate dinner at a place called Mad Dog’s . This rockin’ place would later serve as the majority theme for our dinners in the week. Tonight was pizza night, and it was a blast. In addition to the pizza being great, the woman working running Mad Dog’s that night, Lilia, was a really great host to us and even sang along with the songs. It was very nice follow up day.
