Sorry the blog is about a day late today, just got done from an extremely long day of traveling and telling stories to the family. Our day (yesterday) started out as usual, same time, same place, heading to the same harbor, but today we were doing something none of the Dive BVI instructors or our teachers have done yet. That “thing” we were doing was sea turtle tagging. A government official repressing the British Virgin Islands and works with turtles came over with ten students from Tortola to give us a presentation and briefing on what we were going to do and how we were going to tag the turtles. We left the harbor at around 11 o’clock and went to Little Dix’s bay in Virgin Gorda. This area was a more “touristy” area of the island covered in villas and resorts. This area also happened to be a hotspot for Green Sea Turtles. We got into groups of four, Me, Gavin, Jimmy, and Jack, and were told by the guy who worked with sea turtles to scout out for turtles and their locations and to wave if we saw one. As we were doing this after about five minutes one of the groups caught a huge 50-60lb Green Sea Turtle. It was pretty exciting to see one so up close. Our group was told by the sea turtle guy to get out of the water and wait for him to take our group out as he took the group that just caught a turtle out again. We weren’t having it and swam the other direction looking for a turtle anyways. After ages we decided to give up and head back to the boat, but right as we were doing this I spotted a small maybe 20-25 lb turtle out of the corner of my eye drifting through some turtle grass ( long thin strands of grass turtles like to eat). I screamed “TURTLE” to everyone in my group and just started pumping my legs as fast as I could. We eventually chased it down and sort of encircled it. I went in for the catch, my adrenaline botched my approach and thinking and I grabbed the shell by the outside instead of just above the neck and it took off. We followed. We went in for several more attempts, but they all failed. The chase looked like it was ending as my snorkel partner, Gavin, grabbed it in the sweet spot, but the turtle took swam with him underwater for too long and he needed a breath of air and let go the turtle. We followed. This time I was confident I was going to get it. I was swimming just above trying to get my breathing under control (this chase had been going on for twenty minutes and no other group had saw what was going on) I took one deep breath and submerged myself underwater. “You got this” I thought as I glided gently above the turtle and went in. “YESSSSS” I cheered. I got it right in the sweet spot above the neck. I could hear the cheers above the water from my three other snorkel buddies. I pulled the spasming turtle above the water for a second until my arm sort of slipped and it took advantage of my weakness and darted off into sea unreachable by us. Disappointment and fatigue filled us all, but we managed to slowly move back to boat. . We took the boat back to the harbor, and went from the harbor to the “Old Yarde” a restaurant/hotel where we ate lunch. After lunch we informed by Mr. Kirby and Dr. Gruninger that we’d be taking our final for the course. “Oh, cool that’ll be easy” I thought. Then I learned that it would be two random questions and we would have to present our answers publicly to the class. Public speaking isn’t my greatest trait, I can easily write down, describe and recount something on paper, but speaking it, not so good. Our final was also to be taken with our dive buddy. When we were given our questions, I was kind of baffled because they were really vague and I couldn’t get out my ideas without a pen and paper. My partner and I decided to split each questions up to make easier for us. Eventually our time for planning was up and I sat there enviously listening to my other classmates answer their questions, which I could answer and understand better than the one I got. When it got to my turn I did this best I could to recollect my thoughts from our ten minute brain storm, but not everything came out in the right order or at all, and when it came to my partners turn to speak his question he went blank and didn’t say a single thing, so I quickly tried to cover for him and completely took over the next question to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. I don’t think it went well. After the final we headed back to our cabins, grabbed our money, and payed our individual food bill. The hotel has a place where you can take food and write it down on a sheet of paper, and you pay up at the end of the week. I spent around twenty dollars on Skittles and Snickers alone in five days. When we came back up we noticed that our friends’ cabin was unlocked and that they had their keys sitting on the deck, which is a big no-no around here, so we took the liberty upon ourselves to lock their door to ensure the safety of their belongings, but mostly because we thought it would be hilarious to watch their confusion. After about ten minutes one of our friends from the cabin we locked came up to his cabin. He was locked out and assumed he left the key down by the place where you pay for your food, which is a good five minute hike away. After about fifteen minutes he comes back up again thinking that he just couldn’t get the door open. Nope, he heads back down again to get his other cabin mates. They all came up and had no idea why and how the door was locked. We let the confusion go on for about ten minutes before we told them we had their keys. All of us got dressed up for our formal last day goodbye. About six of us met up at our cabin before heading down to get picked up. We ended up going to restaurant that was built beautifully right on the water. We took our class picture behind the sunset and as I was walking back I wasn’t really paying attention and I sliced my toe open on one of the those anvil looking things that people tie their boats to. I thought I just stubbed it at first, but then I looked down and noticed blood pooling in my pool and thought “ohhhhh crap”. I didn’t really want to say anything because I didn’t think it was bad so I just sat there. Luckily Dr. Gruninger saw it and got help for it. Our Taxi driver, Glenn a really nice man, put disinfectant on it and Mr. Kirby put bandages on it, and I was good to go. We ate a BBQ styled dinner. After dinner the Dive BVI group put together a video of pictures taken throughout the week by one instructor, Laura, and Mr. Kirby. We all stood up and said what our favorite thing on the trip was, mine was Savannah Bay, and then said a bunch of thank you’s to the different people who helped make our trip awesome. A few of the instructors got really emotional, which was nice, and bought us desert, which was nice. We said our goodbyes to the staff and set our alarms for a 4:30 AM departure. Thanks for reading, I had a blast.
