Another bright and early morning, another wake up call from Doc, and another beginning to a wonderful BVI day.
After starting the day off with a fresh shave, an overwhelming hunger came about my person. We took a short walk to the main office of Guavaberry Hotel, where we met Casey for breakfast –donuts the size of a cheeseburger wonderful invention — and reunited with Tina who was ecstatic as always to see us.
I can’t get over how much everyone loves seeing me here, maybe ill just stay?
After breakfast we headed off for our first real adventure of the trip, Mangrove Forests. Upon arriving at the North Side of Virgin Gorda, we took about a 15 minute walk over to an area known for its immense Mangrove forests. After snorkeling and kayaking, another word for watching Christian and Jeff try to kayak and inevitably flip, we discussed a little bit about what we saw and what some of the dangers are to mangroves.
Then a highlight of the day came when 12 of the Marine Biology guys, including myself, found a volleyball sand pit, asked for a volleyball and played a few solid rounds of Nuke ‘Em. My team, being Joe,Tucker, Christian, Killian and Buck, drove a dagger deep into the hearts of our opponents while simultaneously destroying their confidence and wiping out their want to ever try something like that again.
Soon after leaving the bay and North Side of the Island we found ourselves in AC, YES! AC! and man was it glorious. We had lunch that was immediately followed up by a great presentation from Dr. Gore. A short rain storm later, we had taken off en route to our first real dive of the trip.
Our first dive of the trip was in a place called “The Visible’s” because of a rock that just crests above the wave. After a few minutes of having trouble equalizing I finally settled into the dive and was able to enjoy the amazing world under the sea.
Dinner at Maddogs, another great ice cream sundae and a presentation from Casey were on the agenda for this evening. The presentation was about the progress our corals had made over the last year and to re-teach us old techniques as well as advance and teach us new techniques on the transplant of coral. Unfortunately, my phone fell under the deck but after a shirt adventure it was recovered.
See y’all tomorrow!
Sea Monkey in all its glory. Credit to Doctor Gruninger.
