Today was our fifth day here on Virgin Gorda. After I woke up, my cabin and I went to Bougainvillea cabin, where we ate breakfast. From their back porch, there are stairs that lead up to a tall rock that had an amazing view (picture attached at the bottom). From breakfast we headed to the beach and headed out to our first dive site. At the site was a sunken ship originally from Pearl Harbor named Kodiak Queen that has been turned into a scuba attraction. An artificial 80-foot octopus was also set on top of the ship to add more decoration. When our dive group reached the bottom of the ship at around 60 feet, we organized for a group underwater picture. Then, we circled the bottom of the ship, looking at strange wildlife such as Arrow Crab. About 15 minutes later, we rose and entered in the ship. As we first entered, there was a fake laptop and phone that we could play with. We then continued through the ship, traveled up a staircase, and ended up in the head of the octopus. There, we took a giant group picture with everyone on the trip. To end the dive, we exited the octopus and performed our safety stop before surfacing. Throughout the dive, our group was able to take a lot of cool pictures with our underwater cameras. On our second dive of the day, we visited the coral nurseries of the BVI staff. We cleaned off the PVC pipe and the strings that held the nursery together. Throughout the cleaning process, we were constantly stung by fire coral, a type of coral that stings to the touch. The fire coral covered the entire PVC pipe, so as we cleaned it, we had to be extra careful. We finished cleaning, surfaced for lunch, and swam around the boat for about an hour and a half before our next activity, snorkeling in the mangroves. While snorkeling, I did not see any special animals, but apparently many barracuda fish were present and a six-foot hammerhead shark swam past. Overall, the day was very exciting and full of activities.
Today, I learned more about coral restoration and methods of restoration. I got to physically look at and interact with a coral nursery and see the effort it takes to maintain the nursery. People are very intent on restoring coral reefs and will do whatever it takes to do this, including keeping up a huge nursery. Tomorrow, I am looking forward to the service project and the farewell activities. The community of the BVI has provided me with great opportunities like scuba diving, so I am looking forward to giving back. Also, I am not sure what to expect for the farewell activities, so I am also looking forward to that surprise. 
