The second day of diving has come and gone and let me just say that the entire process of getting down here was worth it! To say I was excited is an understatement. I was thrilled to start diving in different locations and discover new species of sea life! Well, that’s what I started thinking a few minutes after my alarm woke me up at 7 a.m. Once we got up, made our way to the marina, had breakfast and boarded the Sea Monkey, we all waited in anticipation to get to our dive site. After our instructors briefed us on the location, the chimney, and told us we would be listing the fish that we would see, we made our way down into the water. At first, I was a bit concerned about remembering the names of the fish species but the instructor listed them on his slate and helped us out with the names. As a result, I ended up being one of the guys with the most fish listed, about 40 in total. Along with the listing of fish, this dive forced us to navigate through small caves and openings in between the rocks. It was easy to get through the cave but the opening was difficult to navigate through and I ended bumping into the walls. After that, we had a second dive, at Paul’s Grotto, and it was here that the array of fish became interesting. We ended up seeing sea turtles as well as barracudas along our dive. After returning from the dive and getting lunch, we went to a beach in order to snorkel around some reefs and learn about different invertebrates, such as urchins and sea stars. The facts about them were very interesting, such as urchins having mouthes on their bottom half and having suction cups in between their needles. Once that was finished, we all jumped back into the water to have some fun before returning to the hotel to have dinner. This day was even better than the first. The people are really nice, the food is good, the rooms are nice, though very hot and end up letting in the occasional mosquito, lizard or scorpion, and the island is just beautiful. It’s images like this that make this whole thing seem worthwhile.
Yup, it’s going to be a good trip.
