The morning started off with an alarm on my iPhone of Apple’s “night owl” ringtone at 5:50. Immediately afterwards, I hopped out of my bed and got dressed for a run with Dr. Gruninger. As I took a step out of the casa, I quickly notice that a “tropical storm” was passing for buckets of rain were coming down. I decided that it would be refreshing. On the run, I was able to see a glimpse of the island; a well painted wall, a fantastic view, and very friendly people. Later, we had a breakfast at the chaperone’s casa consisting of eggs, yogurt, cereal apples, juices and snacks. After that, we booked it down to the cattle guard to take a ten minute ride to the port with Glen. The BVI dive staff was there to give us a warm greeting and situated us for diving. Upon boarding the “sea monkey,” our designated boat, the crew gave us a run down of the day. We then took a boat ride down to the first dive site, a crystal clear “pool” called George Dog. We then took our first dive of the day which consisted of making sure everyone was up to date with their skills and diving. In this dive I saw a couple flounder, a gigantic hermit crab, and a squirrel fish. I learnt how to better stay buoyant over the marine life. After this, we got back on board and went to our new dive spot, the chimney. While we waiting our surface interval out, the whole boat did flips off thr second floor of the double deck boat. We then went on our last dive of the day, as we descended we were able to see a lobster crawl along the bottom. On this dive, we were able to see some more squirrel fish and some cool underwater snails. Also, on this dive we went through the famous chimney, an elaborate color splattered rock pathway that looked impossible to pass through, though I made it with only scratching my shoulder. After this, we made our way back to the surface. From this dive, I learned the various algae that we would be observing for our study. We then took the boat back to the shore and had lunch. After, we went back to the casa and changed for mass. Lastly after mass, we had a lasagna dinner. Tomorrow, I hope to make great progress on our study, whether algae affects reef health, and I hope to have a good time at it.
