Well, today is our last day and it was nice and relaxing. So we woke up and we did not dive today because of the safety hazards from flying so close to diving. Instead , we did a service project on the beach. Some guys were sick and so they stayed and picked up trash on the beach. The rest of us snorkeled out to a very hard to get to location and picked up trash and damage from a ship that wrecked there in the last hurricane. There was a lot of big stuff and Casey and Jeff brought a barge that was basically a giant piece of wood floating on plastic, black, hollow boxes and it was a rough job for Doc, Beth, Mike, and I. The boxes would come out of the underside if the wood and we would have to put them back. And when a wave would come, it would knock the boxes around and then push the barge into us and I found myself sticking out my arm to stop it and then wincing because if the friction of the rope in my hand trying to keep a grip on the rope to make sure it doesn’t float out into the open sea. Once or twice I lost my footing in the large rocks we were standing on and sucked under the barge and then scraped up. I got some cuts on my arms and legs but they are not bad. Also I got a fair sized cut on the palm of my hand from stopping the barge from trapping my legs (thanks to Beth! She gave me one of her gloves to cover my cut until we got back to the marina and check it out) I also got scraped in the face and I thought I would have to be scar face for a while but happily there is no mark. I also got stung by something on my ankle but it just left a little red spot and isn’t as bad a Gaz getting a sea urchin spine in his finger. Once everything was set up, we had the guys on land make a assembly line and we passed old pieces of wood and plastic trash bags filled with stuff to us and we had to put them on the barge. After that, we pushed it out to Casey and Jeff and they took it away while Beth some others and i swam back. We had lunch and free time until the last dinner. Great week and I’m going to miss this program.
