After about 4 solid hours of sleep, me, Richard, and Drew woke to an annoying alarm clock blaring in our ears. No, these weren’t just any alarm clocks, these were roosters, cock-a-doodle-doing louder than any alarm I’ve heard in a while. Regardless of the wake-up call at 6:40, we were still excited to see a “sunnier” side of the island. The first thing that our group did was board our taxi and head over to eat a very good breakfast buffet with the Dive BVI staff. After the delicious breakfast of muffins, fruit, eggs, and BACON, we were oriented on our schedule for the week, which included fish identification, Turtle tagging, and coral replanting. After the first session, we took a break and swam in the hotel pool, which contained “floating” rocks (those definitely fooled me). Once we returned from the scorching sun, one of our instructors, Casey, talked for another hour about how to perform the actual act of transplanting coral, since that will be what our eventual group does anyways later in the week. Once Casey finished her lecture, the entire group headed back outside until lunch was ready. For lunch, our group was served a delectable combination of Mahi-Mahi, tuna, and chicken sandwiches along with some salad and French fries. The group, becoming so anxious for the dive, eventually propelled our instructors to the taxi so that we could finally go for the first dive of our trip. When we finally arrived at the marina, our entire ground was aloud to explore the shops that were lined along the shoreline. Around 1:45, we returned to the Dive BVI station to get our gear ready. After being briefed by the captain of the Sea Monkey, the members of the Sea Dragon, including me, were relieved to finally step onto our ship. We assembled our gear before we set out, yet we were about 15 minutes behind the Sea Monkey ship. However, I am sure that they didn’t have an awesome theme song: “highway to the danger zone.” Nevertheless, once we finally landed at Valley Trunk in North Valley, our group was able to get into the gear, team up with a buddy (mine is Joe), complete the BWRAF (the final check before you enter the water), and then finally complete a long-stride jump off the back of the boat. The first thing I do is to look straight down with my goggles and I am blown away by the scenery (see images below). I see sea fans, colonies of coral, and lion fish. The sights were endless. When our group first makes its way to the bottom, we review what we learned in class, such as the mask fill and hovering, before moving forward in our exploration of the ocean floor. We make a 42 minute dive at 60 feet and see all sorts of creatures: eels, yellow tail snappers, chromis, and arrow crab. After attempting to take multiple pictures, my camera finally dies, yet we persist in our mission. We finally make our way back to the boat and we just explode about all the awesome things we just saw. While we have an Etch-a-Sketch under the water, we really couldn’t express in writing the sheer awesomeness of what just occurred. However, Brian, the other diving instructor on our boat beside Casey, said, “And the diving only gets better…” If that was just “okay,” I can’t wait to go diving tomorrow. I just hope we aren’t forced out of bed by those screeching roosters!
***sorry about the blurriness of the photos
Casey pointing at something in the distance
a view of the beautiful Virgin Gorda
a view of the top of the ocean from the bottom of the ocean
Joe handling the arrow crab
