Sunday morning we woke up and immediately went to eat breakfast at the marina. After we boarded our boats and Casey gave us a briefing on how our two fish identification dives would work. For the first dive I held the identification book and told my dive buddy, Ty Morin, what to write down. On that dive we saw tons of Blue Tang and Squirrel Fish. The corals on the first dive included brain, fan, tube, stag horn, and fire coral. At the end of the dive our dive leader, Sarah, led us into Joe’s Cave which is just a small cave about thirty five long. While in the cave Sarah spotted a Lionfish and called Steve over to spear it. Steve later fed the Lionfish to a shark on his way back to the boat. At our second dive Ty and I switched roles and I wrote down everything we say. This time we saw more sea worms than any other place. The easiest ones to find were the Christmas Tree Worms which have two brightly colored spirals. After the second dive we returned to the marina to eat lunch and after we went back to Guava Berry to change for our afternoon hike to the world famous Baths. We walked about a third of a mile up the island to the trial entrance and Sarah led the group through a gel hike around the rock formations. After making out way through the rocks we found the beach and snorkeled back to the Guava Berry beach. That night we took a taxi back to the Baths where there was a restaurant for dinner.
We were told in advance that Monday would be the day where we are in the water the most. With two dives and two snorkels they weren’t kidding. We started the day off eating breakfast at the marina again before getting on our boats to dive the RMS Rhone, a cargo shop turned luxury cruise liner that sank during a hurricane in the British Virgin Islands. Before going subsurface Casey briefed us on the structure of the wreck and where everything would be. In the water we got down to a maximum depth of about 85 feet and were able to swim through a small portion of the bow. After we swam around the rest of the wreck and ended up finding a Spotted Moray Eek hiding under a rock formation. The second dive of the RMS Rhone took us to the stern, boiler-room, and propeller of the ship. While there we were able to rub the lucky number 26 porthole and find a piece of checkered tile flooring which has not lost its color yet. During the second dive we found some large Angelfish and tons of Squirrel Fish. We ate lunch which was fish and chips at Cooper Island. After lunch we snorkeled up the shore of Cooper Island looking for rays and turtles. After the snorkel we returned to Guava Berry for some downtime before meeting the dive staff on the beach for a grill out. After dinner we snorkeled off the beach at night looking for bioluminescent organism. The first thing we came upon was a small squid which was glowing green and blue. Later we came upon about 20 shrimp and and a large porcupine fish. The dive leaders used UV lights to shoe the exact place if the corals and it showed the newer corals that could be measured easier.
