I woke up today around 6:15 and sat on the porch listening to music. When it came time to meet at 7:30 at the Guava Berry entrance, I was already packed and ready for the day. After we met at the entrance, we went to the Internet lounge for breakfast which consisted of fruit, power bars, loafs of bread, cereal, yogurt, and a couple of other things. While we ate, Caitlin briefed us on our activity today – The Baths. I was super excited for the baths because a couple of the students who went on this trip last year had told me that this was probably their favorite place they went. When she finished talking about The Baths, we went outside and walked about half a mile to bath’s entrance. After layering ourselves with sunscreen and getting ready for the cave explore and snorkel, we headed down a path which was sandy and covered with all sorts of trees. There were tons of lizards and skinks running around and a couple of hermit crabs in the trees or walking around the floor. Sarah, a new instructor that was previously introduced to us in the morning, talked about the geology of the location. She spent a couple of minutes covering the trees and all about the rocks and their formation. From there we reached the giant rocks which formed tombs and all sorts of funky architecture. Sarah led us through tons of differs crevices and showed us all different kinds of places and the importance behind the formation of the rocks. We saw some mango and pomegranate trees on the way, as well as a couple of reef fish dwelling inside. After the tour, we went to an outstanding beach. We jumped right in and went for an hour snorkel. I loved the snorkel so much. It was very relaxing and was so much fun. I saw tons of fish we have already ID’d and also lots of new fish such as a huge grouper we saw when snorkeling in a cave. I saw a sting ray and a barracuda too. The barracuda was so cool. I have always wanted to see one in person. I believe it was actually a large one too because it was not too small. When we finished snorkeling, we went to a beach where Casey met us with Laura for lunch. We ate lunch at the beach and broke into groups for an hour long discussion to ID more fish. Then we got to take a break and either snorkel more or play with the frisbee on the beach or just relax. I went snorkeling for most of the time and then went to play with my friends and Doc with the frisbee. I had a great time and we had great weather to enjoy it in. When we finished at the beach, we went to the marina for our second dive. I got on my boat, the sea dragons, and set off for a new island. When we got there, I could tell I was getting burned. I put on some more sunscreen and then after Caitlin and Jeff Jr. briefed us on the dive, we got in. The water was spectacular as usual and we had no problems at all. While in the water we had to ID some fish by ourselves. First we got to pick some fish of our choice to identify and then Caitlin took turns choosing people to make ID them. We all had a ton of fun and saw some awesome things. There was lots of new coral and we saw another lobster. This one was much larger and a female sheltering her eggs. She was very defensive and buried herself under a coral rock. After the dive we came back to the marina and the taxi brought us to the casa’s. Everyone showered and then met back up an hour later at 6:15 by the entrance. Before we left though it started pouring and we were all pretty much soaked. We walked to Mad Dogs for dinner and ate sandwich wraps with mashed potato salad and some nice noodle casserole. It was a nice evening and it didn’t rain again but the rain made a beautiful sunset. After dinner everyone got ice cream and played frisbee on the restaurant’s property. It was perfect temperature and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. At 7:30 we got back to our casa’s and everyone took turns going to the Internet lounge to take the Fish ID quiz and write their blogs.
