Today our scheduled time to meet down by the taxi stop was 8:30, thirty minutes later than usual…but the chickens didn’t know that. Once again I woke up before six and went out on our deck and just relaxed until it was time to get ready. At 8:30, we were picked up and headed down to the marina for breakfast. Today was our first day without a classroom session and all of us were very excited. It was also our first day with two dives. Unfortunately, my camera only goes down to 50 feet and we went down 70 feet give or take a few on both dives, so I wasn’t able to take my own photos. The first dive was probably on of the coolest experiences of my life. We descended down upon the RMS Rhone which wrecked on October 29, 1867 in the midst of a brutal hurricane storm. Captain Wooly and his crew crashed just off of Salt Island along with 250 other people who were strapped to their beds for “safety reasons.” We went down and followed Laura until “the great beast appeared before us.” The ship was covered with life all about 75 feet below the surface. We soared above and next to it for a good ten minutes until it was our time to go through. We squeezed through an open hole in the ship and navigated the dark ship with flashlights. There was little light shining through the cracks of the ship and you could see our escape hole about thirty feet in the distance. A very cool sight to see. We came out of the ship and floated around looking at all the different fish and coral and ascended to the surface 35 minutes later. We got on the ship and took off our gear and I was not feeling very well. “The sea was angry that day my friends” and I wasn’t even sure that I would be able to go back down for the second dive. 20 minutes later, I still wasn’t feeling well, but I knew I didn’t want to miss a second of diving so I went anyways. After descending, I felt a bit better and was ready to go. We visited the stern of the ship on the second dive which was a bit shallower than the bow. We visited lucky porthole 26 where an Italian man escaped the wreckage because the ship split right next to his cabin. He was the only passenger besides the crew to survive. I rubbed his porthole three times clockwise to receive “three lucky Italian things.” Heading up to the surface, we saw our first barracuda of the trip. Getting on the boat, I looked down to catch another glimpse and the barracuda was sitting there, no less than 5 feet away from me. Another really, really cool thing to see. After fish and chips at Cooper Island’s Beach Club about 10 minutes from the dive site, we took an Eco tour led by the manager of the club. He showed us all the steps he took to make his island more green, and make everything as cost efficient as possible. Then, we headed over to snorkel and saw squid, small swordfish, and more barracuda. At that point, I just wanted to go inside and sleep. But first we headed over to the marina for dinner. We had a luxurious experience because we got to order off of the menu for the first time! That cheeseburger tasted so good, my seasickness was gone in a flash. I spotted a nice shirt that my sister would want at the dive shop next to the marina so I’ll make sure I pick that up sometime this week.
