Atoll Diving
Location: Ahe Atoll, French Polynesia
We started our morning off strong with a hearty breakfast of yogurt and frozen fruit. We found out it's a dive day! We divided and conquered between fun dives and rescue dives.
My group started off finishing our rescue diver certification. Emma, Helena, and I worked our butts off to tug each other onto the dinghy while fighting a fierce current. Got our workout in today thats for sure. We did our final test, and each got a pass! Thank goodness. Mission accomplished.
As soon as we exited the water from our rescue dive, we got right back in for our fun dive. Grace got to drive the dinghy to the dive site. She killed it. Even started the engine on the first try! We made it over there through the choppy waters and entered the most beautiful, electric teal waters I've ever seen. The reef was stunning. Giant coral mounds are filled with a variety of colorful fish, both big and small. One smaller than my pinky nail. My personal favorite part of diving is the constant game of I SPY. I found an octopus hiding in a small cave. Watching it change colors in real time to camouflage with its surroundings was so neat. I also found a Nudibranch, which was so amazing. Bright white with purple spots. What strange little creatures. Queso had his own strange encounter with a fun animal. A remora befriended him and followed him around for the entirety of the dive, suctioning to his leg most of the way. We surfaced and headed back to Argo, with Martin giving the dinghy driving a shot.
Right as we came back from our fun dive and were getting excited about getting a nice WARM drink of water, all chaos broke loose. Teacher Meg had gone into the water after our dive to search for Grace's mask (which she dropped during rescue diver training) - but we should've known better to not let her go alone, because we then had an intense rescue scenario. Aidan and Charlie dove in to try to save Meg. Helena and I tackled Aidan as he was a panicked diver, but we quickly realized that he was, in fact, unresponsive and not breathing. We pulled what we learned from our training and put it to use. We gave rescue breaths and used all of our combined might to haul him into the dinghy, where we successfully resuscitated him! He then resumed his panicked diver mentaility and dragged us off the dinghy and back into the water. I'm not sure what else was happening aorund us during the scenario but I'm sure they all did well. We jumped in joyfully and exited exhausted. That about sums up our rescue diver scenario. What a blast.
I'm going to let Will describe their dive master training today. It sounded, from my bystander's point of view, that it was entertaining to say the least.
Salutations, fellow readers, it is I, the most exalted one. Today, my fellow dive master and I tackled the impossible task of teaching four absolutely novice scuba divers. We had to tackle a fun game of regulator swap at the shallow depth of 80-plus feet. My students were particularly fond of making their instructor's life seem like the most evil shenanigans known to God's green earth. From full BCD bear hugs to underwater mask switches and even premature diving with no air, today was quite the mountain to climb. At the end of the day, corralling these 6-year-olds proved to be an almost impossible challenge, yet we persevered. Just no one tell them I have absolutely zero snacks and candy for them.
Widely considered the world's next Shakespeare,
William Robert Johnson Housh
Lunch was made by Shane. Tortilla pizzas were a good change of pace. Dives resumed after lunch. Everyone enjoyed the downtime we had today when we weren't diving. It allowed us all to catch up with family at home and to take in some much-needed alone time. Alone might not be the right word, as there's no such thing on this boat, but I like to think alone time exists for my sanity. Yummy curry for dinner. My squeeze question was "if you had a parrot and you could train it to say one thing, what would it be?" Thanks, Mom, for the idea! Lots of interesting answers thats for sure! We had our destination presentation after dinner for the Ahe Atoll. Learned some interesting facts. The population is only 550 people. There are 100 black pearl farms on this Atoll. The majority of the famous black Tahitian pearls are from here. There's only one entrance to the atoll. No resorts or hotels here, making it a very remote travel destination. It does have an airport, though! Overall, a super interesting place. Loving it so far! Shore day tomorrow! It should be an interesting time, considering we can walk across the entirety of the town in five minutes or less.
12 days left of the program, but who's counting! We are all taking in these last moments together as much as possible.
A quick I love you to my family at home and my best friend Natalie! Can't wait to hug you guys so soon!
Sydney signing off!