Location: Raja Ampat
Today started with a dawn dive for those who were brave enough to wake up an hour early. Those soldiers were me, Arden, Tougy, Lawrence, Kat, Luna, Ty, Yeshuoa, Imogen, and Will. Honorable mention to Zoe, who woke up but couldn’t go because she was congested. We built our kits, then got in the water and swam to the mouth of the cove that we were in to begin our dive. Daniel, our glorious gondolier and surface support, rowed the dinghy out with us so as not to wake up anyone who wanted to sleep. As soon as we descended, we realized just how strong the current pushing against us was. Ben said that he saw a sea fan getting blown in 3 directions: left, right, and up. He then hit us with a 180, and we went into the current to get to a more suitable spot. Arden and I glided through the water like beautiful airplanes, and I gave Yeshoua my camera so he could take some sick pictures. We coasted along the reef till we reached our pre-agreed air limit and surfaced right next to Vela. We then began to break down our gear, and while we did, Ben’s dive knife sheath went missing. Hit him up with tips. Breakfast was an amazing cinnamon apple oat bake made by our chefs, Brooke, Ty, and Sebastian. We then got ready to pick up the anchor and head to our next spot.
I raised the anchor with the button, along with Zoe, Jack, and Luna, flaked the anchor chain, and Lawrence and Joe were on official chain spraying duty. On the back of the boat, Kat, Jackson (40), Sebastian, Imogen, Reese, and Noa took in our warps and our kedge, flaked the lines, and hosed them down. Also, Tougy raised the spreaders to look out for the reef. We then left our cove and began to head to our new spot. Arden and I spent a lot of our passage strategizing on a level in a game, then we started to study tides with Jackson for PSCT. We then got to our first spot, which had nice beaches in a beautiful little cove. We were asked to leave due to protests in the area against mining. We then set out again for our new spot, the Kabui Village. Josh got raised up the spreaders to look for reef, and we pulled into a nice area for dinner while me Anda and Kat had our tea time. Dinner was Mama B’s curry, note to Mama B, your recipe is killer imma need dat. At the squeeze tonight, I asked what everyone was most looking forward to, and we ended with a three cheers for Captain Labarge, a reference from my and Anda’s trip last year, a moment that Mac loved, I could tell by the grimace on his face. While writing this blog, there were at least 300 bugs in the salon, and team GAK (Garrett Anda Kat pest control) assembled to fight the flies in the chartreuse (sorry Dan 🙁 )
That’s the day through my eyes, peace out, big dawgs.
PS. To all my 40 dayers, Jason, Ansley, Ryan, Drew, Maddie, Kayla, Charles, Iaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, Isaac, Celeste, Jill, Charles: I miss you all and want to hear from y’all in Komodo, let’s get the Vela chat active.
To mom and dad: Sorry I haven’t called that much, the service has been really spotty the last few days, but I’ve been texting a little and I hope you’re getting them.
To Ansley, who I know for sure is reading this blog: Whaddup dawg.