On the last day of my last Marine Bio trip we carried out a service project, presented our final projects, and had dinner at the Top of the Baths. Our service project was cleaning the beach in front of the desalination plant. The desalination plant supplies fresh drinking water for the entire island, and as such it is very important that it remains working. Dive BVI helps maintain the beach front and even advocate to the government that they take care of it as well. The beach is on the windward side of the island so any trash floating in the ocean is blown into its shore. This meant the rocky beach was filled with plastic waste and piles of rotting seaweed. In all, we collected about 25 full size bags of trash from a few hundred yards of coastline. We pulled out countless bits of fishing net, a surprising amount of toothbrush, a somehow intact halogen tube light, a lead acid battery, and a ton of other debris that washed up on the coastline. After the project, we took Glen’s taxi to Yacht Harbor and washed off as well as possible with the hose on the dock. I did some shopping at the Dive BVI store and then we all ate at the Bath and Turtle. The next part of our day was the most intimidating as we were all anxious about presenting our projects to a panel of the Jesuit and Dive BVI staff. Henry and I were both confident that we would do well in the presentation because we felt that our project has gone well, but we were still nervous. When our time came to present everything went smoothly and Doc didn’t ask us any gotchya questions- like if coral is a plant or an animal. Presentations complete, everyone headed down to the beach for a last game of frisbee. It was hard leaving as I knew that would be the last time I ever saw Guavaberry’s pristine beach. Dinner tonight was a delicious buffet at the Top of the Baths. We ate, enjoyed the breathtaking view of the bay, watched a slideshow of some great moments of the trip, and heard moving speeches by both the staff and fellow classmates. It was hard saying goodbye to some of the dive instructor I had the pleasure of working with over the past two years, but as I reflected over all the incredible things we had done I was extremely glad that I had the opportunity to take part in this great program. I am looking forward to getting home- even if it means another full day of flying and layover- but I’m going to miss Virgin Gorda and all the great people here.
