Alarm goes off at 7:00am this morning. Not a cell phone alarm or a call from a chaperone, but nature’s alarm– a crowing rooster. Still recovering from jet lag from the previous day’s travels, my two roommates and I stumbled around the house to, somehow, eventually find ourselves outside and ready for a day of diving. But before getting into the clear waters, our entire group crammed ourselves onto an open-air taxi and traveled to a breakfast buffet and a debriefing. There, we became familiar with our dive masters for the week and, in a rather humorous and engaging way, reviewed the information from our classroom session. Lunch arrived in the form of another buffet in our conference room and we were soon greeted again by our taxi driver, Glen, a friendly local man with a smile that forces you to also grin. Glen whisked us away to our respective dive boats at the marina, my group’s aptly named Sea Monkey. And before we knew it, the vessel full of anxious high school boys glided along the turquoise waters to our first dive site. Then it rained. But undeterred, we geared up and leaped into the water for our “check-out” dive and were quite surprised by the amount of various coral and fish species. 39 minutes later, we resurfaced, exhausted, but amazed and wanting to continue. Though, once all the divers exited the water we returned to shore for a quick shower for the outdoor dinner that would follow. And as the sun set, we all ate on the balcony awaiting the next day’s adventures.
