Today was our first day in The British Virgin Islands. Yesterday we took a four hour flight from Dallas to San Juan Puerto Rico, and then we took a one hour plane ride to Beef Island. Then, at about 10 PM, we all gathered in a boat and traveled to Virgin Gorda, which was about 20 minutes away. It was 1:00 AM when I finally went to sleep, and today we woke up at 8:00 AM for orientation.
Me, Francis, and Ben, who are the only seniors this week, are together in one of the many villas that our whole class is divided into. The villas are honestly not as bad as I thought they would be; ours is about the size of a typical hotel room, and the only problem is that there is no air conditioning and no Internet. The only Wifi we can connect to is in a nearby lounge that is in a separate building across the road, and right now at 8:30 PM is the first time we have had a chance to get on the internet. The villa also has a good view, but I forgot to take any pictures today so I’ll include the view and the villa itself in the pictures tomorrow.
Anyway, today we woke up and left at 8:45 for orientation, where we were formally introduced to the rest of the staff we are diving with (Jeff and Casey McNutt, Brian, and Laura). These diving instructors were there along with Mr. Kirby, Mr. Nevitt, and Dr. Gruninger from Jesuit. After a breakfast of sausage, eggs, fruit, and orange juice, we learned what we would be doing all week and divided into 2 groups, named after the two boats we travel in, Sea Dragon (My group) and Sea Monkey. After we swam in the pool a while and ate lunch (salad and sandwiches), we left to the harbor. Even though no one had their wallet, we went into the diving gift store while they were loading the boats.
Eventually, we all got loaded into the boats. Sea Dragon was led by Dr. Gruninger, Brian (who is from Ireland), and Casey, and they all went over safety precautions, and diving basics. I was diving buddies with Cesar Garcia, whom I knew and had worked with in class occasionally. We finally drove the boat about 5 minutes along the shore to an area that was 30 feet deep for our first dive. We dove for 45 minutes, and the area had patches of rocks and coral with small fish. The only problem was that I couldn’t stop sneezing for about 5 minutes under the water. After we finished diving we came back and looked at the Lion fish that one of the instructors had killed with the spear gun. The Lion fish is an invasive species that is destroying the ecosystem, so they planned to hunt as many as they could. They dissected the 3 Lion fish after they had removed their poisonous spikes.
After that we returned to our villas, got in dry clothes, and left for Dinner at the restaurant Mad Dogs. We all ate pizza and casually played some game where we swing rings onto a hook. After dinner we watched two of the videos that two groups had made for their topic in class. The topics were Global Warming and Invasive Species. After dinner we walked back to the lounge office place across the street from our villa. This lounge has food and most importantly Internet where I can finally upload my blog. Mom I’m sorry I haven’t been able to email you back, but I spent to long on this blog and we need to head back to the villa before curfew at 10 PM. I’ll write more tomorrow, but that’s about it for Day one.
