This first day of the marine biology trip has already exceeded all of my expectations and has really struck somewhat of a driving excitement for the days to come. We woke around 6:00 a.m to the sound of a large golden rooster performing his daily, and quite annoying, ritual. My cabin and I hurriedly showered and dressed appropriately for a long day out on the water. After a quick briefing of hotel and other relevant rules, the group set out for the docks to eat a delicious breakfast and meet our dive captions. My group was assigned Zoltan, who is originally from Hungary and serves as the caption of the Sea Dragon, as our dive leader. As we made our way towards the Dog Islands and our first dive site, off the coast of George Dog, it was hard to restrain my eagerness to partake in my first open water. As we descended, a relatively small school of blue tang fish , which are commonly referred to as the “Dory” fish after the popular film Finding Nemo, swam speedily underneath us. For the remainder of the dive, we refreshed crucial dive skills, such as clearing a mask, and traversed the ocean floor, reaching a max depth of 50ft. Zoltan pointed out a wide array of parrotfish, surgeonfish, angelfish, wrasses, and the list goes on! I took note of the colorful and exotic coral; however, sadly enough I did notice a few individual elkhorn corals afflicted by coral bleaching. Nevertheless, I retained my enjoyment and awe of this first dive. Like the first dive, the second dive surpassed my expectations with a tight swim through caverns and canyons. We spent the first half of the dive on the ocean floor, acknowledging the many schools of blue chromis inhabiting the staghorn reefs. After swimming through the “chimney”, Zoltan pointed out a beautiful grey angelfish hiding under a small overhang of coral. A few minutes later we surfaced and concluded our final day of the day. Once we returned to the hotel, we had a quick PB&J lunch on the beach and then snorkeled to the infamous mystic baths. It was around a twenty-minute swim before reaching the unique rock formations. Our guides led us through narrow and cramped passages, ultimately leading us to a beautiful beach with enormous rocks that Barrett and I scaled with ease. With the snorkel back was much longer and resulted in much fatigue and the conclusion of the first day.
