Day 1: My day began with being picked up by our bus driver, Glen, at the cattle guards at the end of Guavaberry. We ate at the Yacht Club, where we were introduced to the dive instructors. My dive instructor is a man named Ben. From the Yacht Club we went straight to the boat to go on our warm up dive. On the ride to the dive site I had the opportunity to drive the boat for about 5 minutes. Once we arrived at the dive site, Kasey briefed us about different hand signals. She also talked to us about the different diving techniques we would have to perform for our dive instructor to prove our ability to be under control underwater. Once we hit the water we performed those drills and then we continued the dive like a regular dive. We visited many different elkhorn and staghorn coral forests. Around the elkhorn forest there was a large mass of damsel fish but no bearded fire worms.
The next dive site that we went to was the “World famous chimney” which is off of Great Dog Island. There were marvelous rock structures and cliffs that had been carved by the waves crashes against the rocks. The dive started with a bang, within the first 5 minutes we saw two squids, this was the first time I had ever seen squids. While we were in the chimney, Ben, pointed out a French angel fish and a crab. The crab was in the heart of the chimney in a vertical crack tucked far to the end of it. When we exited the chimney I saw the same two squids again in the same general area as they were in before.
Today we went to “The Bathes” a geological structure created by volcanic rock. We snorkeled from our resort to the site of the granite structures. When we arrived we went through the tour of the structures and saw the famous rock that Tyra Banks posed on for Sport Illustrated. Then we walked to a part of “the bathes” that the natives used to sleep in. Becca, a dive instructor and the leader of our tour through the bathes, explained that the cave circulates air which keeps the heat of the day out and keeps the cave warm during the night. Beth, the other instructor and tour guide told us the origin of the name, “the bathes”. During slavery, slaves would bathe before they went to be sold. She also told us that once slavery was abolitionisned all of the copper mines and sugar cane plantation were shut down and the people running them left the country. They left the land to the slaves to own and it is said that 6 slave families become the majority property owners of the island Virgin Gorta.
