Today, we woke up and met at the cattle guard waiting for Glenn, our taxi driver, to take us to the docks for breakfast. After a fantastic cereal and pop tart breakfast, we loaded our gear onto the boats and we headed to Wreck Alley for our two tank dive. The boat ride was about 20 minutes but it was a beautiful ride, as always. We descended at about 9am after a long surface swim over to our site because another boat was anchored where we wanted to anchor. We descended down upon a gorgeous artificial reef known as the Beata shipwreck. We didn’t get to go into the ship but we swam around it which was still fantastic. We swam around this wreck for about 30 minutes and then swam back to the boat which took about another 10 minutes. We came up for some snacks and then briefed for our next dive which we started at around 10am. On this dive, each dive buddy team laid down a weighted line on the ocean floor. We then measured the amount of coral in centimeters literally touching the line to figure the live coral coverage of the reef. Most of the coral that Gavin and I measured was, unfortunately, dead. Once we gathered back up our line (which was extremely hard because it weighed so much and we had to keep our buoyancy), we swam around on our own and checked out the surrounding coral. Two tank dives are extremely tiring and we were ready for our lunch. Today was the day we had all been waiting for… world famous fish and chips at Cooper Island. We docked our boat and walked 10 yards up the beach to reach this popular beach club and sat down to the mouth watering plate of food. After lunch, we headed back to Virgin Gorda. We were allowed a 30 minute break before we had to get back to work. For our last event of the day, we had to design our reef using the cinder blocks provided to us. I only used two blocks for my design. One block on the bottom with two holes for a shelter for fish and a 3-hold block facing up on the top that I filled with cement in order to stabilize my dowel rods. The dowel rods will be used to attach coral fragments and give the coral a place to grow. We will be dropping the coral down on the Jesuit Reef tomorrow using floats. The cinder block preparing process took about an hour today and we headed back to our cabins a little late for showers. After showers, we went to Mad Dog’s for our last time ever. We were served nachos and quesadillas by our most gracious host, Inga. We thanked Inga after our dinner for two incredible years of food and hospitality. After our emotional exit, we left for the Internet cafe to finish up our blogs. I’m extremely tired (once again) and I need a lot of rest for tomorrow.
