Location: Moorea, French Polynesia
Hello everyone! Today was your classic Argo dive day, full of speeding dinghies, sleeping turtles, and hanging out on deck. After a super fun sign-out night, Arthur and Gavi made banana yogurt eggless pancakes, which were very delicious and just what we needed to get us ready to dive. The dive site was located 2 nautical miles away from where Argo is anchored, so that required almost a 30-minute dinghy ride through the shallow, crystal clear waters of the lagoon, blasting country music. After we eventually found the dive buoy, we kitted up and jumped in. Instantly, we saw a huge green turtle eating algae off the reef. Along our dive, we came across not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, but 5 green sea turtles in a 15ft radius, all cuddled up in the reef, taking naps. Lucky for us, they were super chill and allowed us to get nice and close to get a good look at all their features. the pattern in their shells, being able to see the little claws on their flippers, and making direct eye contact with them is something i will never forget. On our way back from the dive sight, we yet again blasted country music and raced ply through the lagoon, trying not to hit any turtles chilling on the surface. Once my dive group got back to Argo, the next 2 groups were ready to go. the rest of the afternoon was full of swimming and hnaging out with everyone on the boat, most of us soaked up the sun and when we got to hot we would jump and repeat the same process over again. somehow avi, ani, and myself convinced meg to allow us to go to the gas station once the dive groups got back, the only conditons were we needed to help with dinghy fuel and had to ask everyone on board for their order. At the gas station, we bought multiple Cokes, 5 tubs of ice cream, some sparkling waters, and one full bag of Cheetos puffs for Mars. once everyone recived their drinks from our bag we were told by rachel and shane to meet in the salon for something very important, they explained the seamester tradtion of writting everyone a personalized card that they recieve at the end of program. the story behind the cards is very impactful, to summarize it was about this teacher that wrote each of his students letters about all the positive things they do, multiple years down the road the teacher recives news that once of these students dies in vienam. He is invited to the funeral, at the funeral he is told by freinds and family that mark (the student) always talked about him and kept the letter very close, he then finds out that all of his students kept their letters and read them almost everyday. We were all touched by the story, and it made us see the impact such a simple gesture could have on someone’s life. We were then assigned the task of writing 30 cards, one for each student, one for each staff member, one for the office, and one for ourselves that will get mailed ot us at a random date. After dinner, we had our last 7th squeeze of the program. overall today i think made us all think and reflect about the past 83 days and the impact it will have on our lives, thinking back to the first days in antigua it feels like that was 5 years ago. the realtionships we have made, the memories, and although it defiently wasnt easy all the time every thing was worth it, and i will hold these 90 days as life long memories.
p.s. Hi family back home and Ava! I can’t wait to see you all! Only 10 days!