Today I woke up again and went to eat breakfast on the docks. I ate banana bread, bacon, juice, and omelets. We then went out to Long Bay (one of two Long Bays on Virgin Gorda. This makes no sense to anyone. The Long Beach we were at was near Savanna Bay.) Today we were transplanting coral. Essentially coral reproduces through budding, a process where a piece of the coral falls off and begins to grow new coral. This process can be controlled by cutting off a piece of coral and attaching it to a hard surface using epoxy putty or a zip tie. While the guides readied this adventure, my partner Clayton Caldwell and I went snorkeling. As we went out to the reef near the boats, we saw a giant sting ray. We then went around with some other friends for a little while before returning to the boats for the dives. For the first dive, we were collecting pieces of staghorn and elkhorn coral. At one point I was looking at my air gauge not paying attention to where I was going. As I looked up, I came to a sudden stop. Right in front of me was a giant piece of fire coral literally the size of me. Fire coral stings you really bad (I got stung on dive two really bad. I’ll talk about it some more later.) I took in a huge breath, filled my BCD all the way up and rose as fast as I could, narrowly missing the behemoth. I went around, found and harvested some coral. And went back to the surface for a ham sandwich. We rested for a little while before part two: planting and measuring. We descended and I began by measuring coral that others were planting. I had three chances to plant coral. My first attempt I went to zip tie a elkhorn coral to a dead piece of elkhorn. As I was pulling the string, I subconsciously took in a full breath of air, and began to float up. I panicked, and before I could adjust I broke the dead piece of coral off of the rock and Laura had to replant it. I turned around and saw Clatedog laughing like crazy (I think he burned through a quarter of a tank of gas in his moment). Round two actually led to a successful planting that gave me a false sense of hope. I was able to successfully plant a piece of elkhorn coral. On round three I went to plant a piece of staghorn coral, and as I got close, the full weight of my body went onto a piece of fire coral. It was extremely painful. I handed the coral to Laura, and went up a few feet, causing me not to break anything in my agony. I was sort of proud of myself. We then got back into the boat and went back to the huts. After showering and changing, we went to church. The church is on the top of a mountain, and had a beautiful view. After going to church and taking a picture with the priest, we went and ate lasagna at Maddogs. This is how I ended an awesome day.
