Nicholas, SlaytonThis morning, we went to Plum house for breakfast, which was the same as ever, Kellogg’s cereal with milk, and tropical juice that consisted of bananas, apples, and other fruits. After breakfast, all the students went to the Dive BVI shop, where we split into the same two boats. We put on our equipment onto the boat and then we traveled to Ginger Island. When we were on the backside of Ginger Island we saw a pod of dolphins swimming around, though I only saw their tails. Right before we dove, I got a bit nauseous, and had to lay down on the roof. However, in the water, I felt very good, and my nausea went away. On the first dive of the day, we were completing our biological project, which is to find the relationship between algae and coral health. I was specifically was counting the percentage of coral in our ten by ten foot area that had white tips on them. The white tip on a coral is a sign of poor health on the coral. When our group was coming back up, I saw that Tyler and Trip were signaling to me, and then I looked at where they were pointing, and it turned out that a shark was five feet away from me. I attempted to chase it, but I couldn’t catch it. When we got back up, the nausea returned, and I wasn’t sure that I could do the second dive. Luckily, as soon as I get back in the water, I was fine, and continued our research. On that dive, a giant lobster appeared, to which our dive master, Zoltan, responded that it was “dinner.” An interesting observation is that I have improved vastly over my last four dives, which were my first dives in the ocean. When we returned to the docks, we went to a shop, but nobody bought anything because we brought no money with us. Once the other boat returned, the group went to lunch, where I ate a good chicken wing lunch. The coolest thing of the day was when we went to the “Baths” which are named such because they are batholiths in them. The baths were a series of narrow caves, and a rope and rocks to climb up. After the squad was done climbing and navigating, we took a swim, and then a snorkel back to Guavaberry. On the snorkel, I saw a fish, a few reef squid, and some jelly fish. For the next few hours, we ate dinner, swam on our beach, and played a game of ultimate frisbee. Finally, we rested for a few hours, wrote these blogs, and went to bed. Good night!
