Shortly after leaving the small plane last night, we were ushered onto the transport boat between Beef Island and Virgin Gorda. On the way, we ate pizza and learned our room assignments and boat assignments. I am in a room with my research group and two other juniors. We woke up this morning to a tour by the Guavaberry property owner, Tina. I got to re-learn the rules like not climbing on the rocks. We as a group headed over to the marina and had breakfast with the Dive BVI staff and learned who our dive masters would be. Our group got assigned Becca. Our first dive was a checkout dive so we could get re-acquainted with diving. The second dive was at the famous Chimney. Most of the dive we were single file in a small trench until we came to the rock that looped over us. This was cool because we got to see a species of coral that only grows under rocks and in darkness. After that we swam through the small hole known as the chimney and it didn’t look like we would fit, but we did. After that we went back to the hotel and had lunch. Then the entire group snorkeled to the baths, where we learned a lot about BVI history.
