The day first began when both roosters and sharp, bright bursts of sunlight awoke both me and one of my roommates. Whom then proceeded to prepare for the day by putting on sunscreen and packing scuba gear.
Next we headed to a restaurant via a taxi. There we ate a breakfast of eggs, ham, bagels, and sausage dish and then learned about the general rules of the island as well as our schedule for the week. After this lesson we took a short break until lunch where we ate ham and cheese sandwiches, fish sandwiches, and French Fries before learning about the various different, diverse fish and other marine life located among the different reefs bordering Virgin Gorda so that we could better understand the different marine wildlife we will be interacting with during the dive we experienced later that day.
Then after this brief introduction we got a small preliminary lesson about what we will be doing on our first dive and we reviewed some of the underwater maneuvers and skills we learned when we first became certified divers. After this we geared up for our dive at valley trunk reef and separated into two groups that divided the boat in two. After this we used a mooring line as a reference to descend to our initial depth of about 30 feet. Once we reached the bottom we quickly practiced three diving skills , regulator recovery, hovering, and mask flood. We then gradually swam into a slow-moving current so that we would be able to easily and quickly return back to the boat by utilizing the current on the journey back. After this we gradually swam among the reef to the fringes where we slowly descended in depth until we reached a depth of 60 feet. While we were descending we observed the local marine wildlife living among the reef. On our journey outward to the borders of the reef we observed a large diverse amount of animals, ranging from the large spiny lobster to the tiny blue tang. The first fish we encountered was the medium sized trunk fish wish was colored black and white with protruding lips. After this encounter we came into contact with many blue tang fish swimming in small schools. Then we came into contact with a carnivorous squirrel fish about five inches in length and two ten inch spiny lobsters partially hidden in a small cave amongst a large rock. Once we reached our max depth of sixty feet we encountered a large blue queen angle fish. After this we turned around and used the current to return to the mooring line we used to descend where we encountered species of fish different from our prior descent against the current. First we interacted with a medium sized red goat fish hidden behind staghorn coral. After this we found a yellow-headed jawfish peaking out of its home that was burrowed into the coarse sand as well as a black feather duster worm. Next we found the line we had used for descent and proceeded to use it for ascent and a short three minute safety stop at fifteen feet. Once we completed the safety stop we continue used to ascend until we reached the top where we swam to the boat, disassembled our gear, and headed back to the beach where we took a break and headed back to our two bedroom cabin at guavaberry.
After the short break at our cabin we went to dinner at a local restaurant called mad dogs where we all ate a large variety of different pizzas range ring from generic pepperoni to cheeseburger. I ate six pieces all consisting of pepperoni except for one chicken flavored pizza. After this marine biology one and two split up to fill out our dive logs with information about our earlier dive.
After mad dogs everyone made blog posts about each of their individual earlier escapades, which was posted using a local Internet cafe located near the guavaberry resort. We then returned to our hut where we quickly fell asleep, after being exhausted from the day’s many different adventures.
