July 12-13
It all started July the 12th at 5 am. I arrived at the airport with my white Mexico hat and my required light blue marine biology shirt. I went towards our group with my dad who drove me. Before I knew it I was on the plane. We arrived at Puerto Rico where we stayed for seven hours before boarding. We boarded on a small jet that had rows of two seats on one side and one on the other. One thing I remember on our way to to Tortolla was that the jet vibrated constantly on our way there. I got seated next to my friend Ryan Davis and we both fell asleep on the way there. When we arrived in Tortolla, my duffel bag felt twice as heavy as it was. We were all exhausted and still had to go through security. Once we passed through there, we rode a boat named Seawolf to go to our hotel called Guavaberry. On our way to Guavaberry the crew provided us with much needed pizza and assigned us our cabin and friends. I was assigned to the Mango cabin. We all rushed to claim beds and I picked the one that was by itself. Unluckily, the bed I picked was literally made of only springs and no real support for my already bad back. I then realized I would have to sleep on those springs for seven days. Since the bed was not comfortable at all, I barely got any good sleep.
July 13-14
I woke up at 6:00 am and jumped in the shower to get ready to go to the cabin to meet with the other groups. We got picked up by Glenn, to go to get breakfast at the Yacht Club. I ordered a cheese omelet with bacon and ham and an orange juice. After the breakfast we went on over to our boat called Sea Monkey. We went down for my first dive ever in the ocean. I was amazed by all the beautiful marine bright colors that I saw and it was amazing to see the fish we were studying and observing in pictures in real life. Like the parrotfish, we studied it and it looked way more amazing live. When we surfaced, Casey showed us Cockroach island, Great dog island, and George dog island and why they were named that. I found that they were named because the monk seals barked near the island. The monk seals were extinct in that area in the 1950’s. We then continued to dive two where we did fish identification. After that, we snorkeled about two miles to the baths where Becca and Beth showed us the rich history of how african slaves cleaned up there. And one of the exciting parts of my day was climbing the huge boulders with my group. We then snorkeled back to the hotel. For dinner, to end the day right, Casey brought us delicious food to make ourselves some burritos.
