To begin our trip after a long and tiring day of traveling on Saturday, we had a great breakfast of eggs, cliff bars, and yogurt to prepare for our dives. After we listened information about the resort we are staying at, the Guavaberry Spring Bay Resort, we rode down to the dock with our taxi driver Glenn. We were then sorted into boats with leaders, and I’m on Sea Monkey with Rupert and Becca. We then loaded up the boats with our BCDs, regulators, and tanks and headed out for our first dive. Our first dive on the Sea Monkey was designed to get us adapted to diving in the ocean, while also reviewing some skills that we learned during certification. Being in the ocean for the first time was incredible and beautiful, and I saw many parrotfish, mooray eels, and jumping crabs. The visibility in the water was great, and the peacefulness of the underwater life was beautiful. After surfacing from our first dive and taking a short break, we immediately went to our second dive location, which was just off Great Dog Island. The island got its name through a series of wars from two local tribes. After the war the two tribes delegated land to each other, and while exploring one of the islands, one of the tribes heard loud barking noises, which frightened them because many dogs carried rabies at that time. The tribe immediately left the island, fearing they would get attacked by the dogs. However, many years later Christopher Columbus came across they exact same island and was intrigued by the noise. He found that they noise was made by Caribbean Monk Seals. Columbus and his men were extremely hungry, and due to the extremely friendly nature of the seals, they were easily able to capture and eat them, which has eventually led to their extinction in the 1980s. Diving in the Dog Islands was extremely beautiful, and we even saw a sunken airplane that crashed at the edge of a runaway in Tortola because it was overweighted and never got into the air. Luckily, no passengers or crew were harmed. Next to the airplane there were beautiful corals and huge schools of fish. We even saw a barracuda that was huge. After our dive we attended mass and then ate dinner. Overall, it was a successful first day.
