Day 1
Today we woke up to the crowing of a rooster outside our door, apparently one of many roaming freely about the island. We went out and met at the bus to take us to he class room. There we met the dive BVI crew and had breakfast. Then we talked about sea world and the moral ambiguity of whale containment and had a mini debate on whether it should continue or be regulated. We then made shark hats from paper plates and had a contest for the best one. We then went through fish identification of all the different kinds of fish around the islands. Then we came back for a game of guessing the fish, which was written on the board behind us and we had to ask yes or no questions about it. We had lunch and then sat around for just a minute, then the bus picked us up to take us to the marina where we split into the sea monkeys and the sea dragons. Then we were put on the respective boats, I was on the sea monkeys, we went over our scuba gear, and then we went out to our dive sites. We were right off Great Dog Island, we had a small briefing over what the dive would be over, then we went in. The water was perfect temperature and clear. To start off we did scuba skills to check our levels. Then we swam to the side of the island, identifying different organisms; sergeant majors, angelfish, some crabs, and some elkhorn, staghorn, and cup coral. We reached “the chimney” which was a small crevasse in the water, with a msmall cave which we got to swim under and look at the coral growing underneath the rock. Then we went through a crack in the rock which looked about 6 inches wide. We were originally going to check out a few big boulders under water that were eroded at the bottom but we ran out of time fast and we had to surface. We got on the boat about 30 minutes late and steamed back to shore. We then rushed back to the resorts and showered and changed and went to mass. The church was on top of a big hill and had a great view of the island. After mass we went back to the houses and changed into more comfortable clothes for dinner on the beach. We had a really good meal and then played around in the surf until it got dark. Then we came to the wifi room to write our blogs. A really great start to the trip and a fantastic day to be here.
