This morning was nice. Every one in our cabin woke up energized for our three dives. After breakfast we headed to the docks where Sea Monkey beat the other boat off the docks. We headed to the first dive site called the steps. The steps are a series of reefs that slowly become deeper. Because our groups research project focuses on elk horn coral we started our day off with snorkeling. We accomplished three test, before we returned to the dive boat, once back at the dive boat we geared up as quickly as possible and jumped in to start our dive. We dove down to about 80 to 85 feet were we swam with at least 5 sharks. We weren’t really sure how many sharks were there because the sharks would all be circling us and more would be in the distance. Our dive instructor had us circle up at the bottom for a picture, but it was photo boomed by a large black tip reef shark. After surfacing we took our extended surface interval to compinsate for long bottom time. After moving dive sites we dive down to about 50 feet were we explored the stag horn coral and reefs. During our dive we managed to see another shark. I managed to get some nice pictures of Christmas tree worms, feather duster worms, and damselfish. We quickly raced over to lunch with Sea Dragon. In the afternoon we headed to the harbor to drop of Casey and the empty air tanks, before we headed to our final dive of the day. At our final dive of the day we were tasked in taking measurements of the coral nursery. Since most of the groups had finished early and still had lots of air we took a quick tour of the surrounding reef, were I found a skeleton of an urchin. It sadly broke during our assent. Once back on our boat we headed home with Mr. Von driving the boat smother that our captain. Once back at the cabin we worked diligently on our project and ran the test on our water samples. I learned during our dives that the black tip sharks are actually very friendly and curious unlike the picture of a shark many of us imagine in our head. Along with that they are quite photogenic. I hope tomorrow we will see some more sharks during our wreck dive. I am sad that we have our final two dives tomorrow and that our trip is almost over. I am glad I have had this experience of diving here in the BVI and learning everything I have learned.
