I Become a Chimney Sweep
By Alex Magee
Yesterday…
We arrived at Virgin Gorda at night and went to bed, only after eating microwaved macaroni and cheese and granola bars. (I only microwaved the macaroni and cheese, not the granola bars…)
Today…
I woke up at about 6:15 to hundreds of mosquito bites on my legs, which is a very itchy way to begin the day. I then dragged myself into our cabin’s kitchen. When I saw the view out the front door, I forgot all about the mosquito bites and stood in awe of nature and the view I had missed the night before.
Before breakfast I brushed my teeth and ate another granola bar. We had a wonderful breakfast of eggs, bacon and a plethora of other things. For the rest of the morning we listened to very informative and interesting presentations from the Dive BVI staff, topics ranging from coral health and transplanting to fish identification.
Following the lessons we experimented with combinations of guava and cranberry juice over a quick lunch after which we hopped on the boats to go to our first dive. I was on the Sea Dragon boat team, however, the Sea Dragon was on a different trip so we were all given the honorary title of “sea cats.” I have only ever dove in the International SCUBA pool and a lake with terrible visibility so my first trip into the big blue unknown was quite mind-blowing. I could see the bottom of the ocean from the surface and it got more amazing as we descended. The diversity of animals at the bottom was insane: there were tons of coral and fish species, including the very sneaky fire coral. (Fire Coral: a dangerous type of coral. Its name is inspired by its defense mechanism; when a person touches it a feeling of burning overcomes the wound and presumably hurts a lot!) Note to self, DON’T TOUCH FIRE CORAL!!!
After our initial checkout dive, we swam over to the chimney, which, by the way, was Jacques Cousteau’s favorite dive spot in the BVI! I was very satisfied by the adventure and the many fish and coral we saw but I was also sad because of the environmental damage and the bleached stag-horn coral that we saw down below the boat. The other group caught a lionfish and my group saw a spotted moray eel and a juvenile pufferfish, among other things.
I have been entrusted with the cabin keys by my roommates, I very much enjoyed the hospitality of the islanders, the dives were totally awesome, and we have been fed well, therefore I proclaim-eth this day as a good one.
We were supposed to have a picture but I didn’t have one so I drew a scene!
