Location: Palau
Today started off as normal with a 7 am wake-up call from Garret taking a fork to a pot and loudly banging on it for the entire ship to hear (Will and Marijke weren’t too pleased with that one). Around 7:15, the whole crew was called up on deck for a roll call to prepare for a quick jaunt over to the Rock Islands for a nice change of scenery and some amazing new dive sites. As people prepared Vela for departure, breakfast was being served too, making for a slightly chaotic start to the day. Today’s breakfast also included another highly valued jar of Nutella (which promptly got overused and is now sitting at well under half of a jar left).
The short voyage started out smoothly at about 7:30 am, but that did not last long. Only a couple of minutes into the voyage, we were hit with some decently heavy rains. The loose tarp over the food started blowing about wildly and knocked over several of the foodstuffs that were left out. Everyone scrambled to change into their foul-weather gear as soon as possible. The first part of the voyage was relatively short to get to the start of the rock islands. Once we reached the start of the islands, Arden was hoisted up the mast for reef watch while Jackson A, Ben, and Kat boarded the dinghy to scout out ahead.
The next two-ish hours were spent navigating the rock islands to find a good anchor site for Vela. Rain was intermittently barraging us from above, but it wasn’t too unpleasant. Around 10:15 am, we found a good spot near some awesome coral reefs and dive sites to anchor. Soon after the anchor was dropped, Will, Lawrence, Josh L, Noa, and Zoey went snorkeling along the shore in our new ocean campsite. The next hour and a half was spent having some free time to do our own things.
Marijke was head chef today and made some wonderful chicken salad sandwiches for lunch, along with her sous chefs, Brooke and Steph. The bread for the sandwiches was also nice and dense and doughy, courtesy of Anda. Ben made some announcements after lunch about our plan for the afternoon and evening, and we were all informed we would have the choice between two dives: an afternoon dive or a night dive. Night dives are pretty rare, so of cours,e the slots filled up for that dive right away. The afternoon dive had some slots left, but too many people wanted to be picked, so Luna created a lottery system to determine who would be chosen to participate in both dives. There was quite a bit of competition, but the final candidates chosen were Arden, Lawrence, and Kat.
As the afternoon dive crew prepped for their dive, Jackson A, Sebastian, Steph, Marijke, and Imogen left for a snorkeling expedition with Dan. A few of us were a bit nervous to hop in the water, though, because roughly fifteen minutes prior to leaving for snorkeling and diving, Dan and Mac spotted a juvenile saltwater crocodile as they were cruising around in the dinghy. That left some of us a bit spooked and others even more hyped to get in the water. More snorkeling occurred after the dive crew returned, and Anda spotted an octopus on his outing!
Much of the afternoon was taken up by the dives and snorkeling, and the remainder of the time before dinner was spent relaxing, doing some homework, or getting in a much-needed nap. As dinner was being cooked by Marijke and Steph starting around 4 pm, Jackson F., Reese, Josh F., Jackson A., Zoey, and Imogen went over their knowledge reviews for the advanced open water diver certifications with Dan. Just before dinner, the night dive crew began setting up their kits for their eagerly awaited night dive (and hopefully spotting that juvenile saltwater croc). Not long after, a delicious dinner was served of Thai Green curry. Clean-up went rather smoothly, and immediately after everything was finished, people began preparing for the night dive.
The group going on the night dive consisted of Josh Y., Jackson F., Marijke, Arden, Luna, Lawrence, Kat, Imogen, Toogi, and Jackson A. Ben and Dan split the group into two smaller groups and went their separate ways. The dive was a quick surface swim away from Vela and lasted about 45 minutes. The wildlife they saw was spectacular. They saw a couple of different species of jellyfish, crabs, lobsters, some large-eyed fish, and, most impressively, bioluminescence. The bioluminescence was so magical on their swim back to the boat. Once back on deck, we looked overboard and saw a huge school of fish lighting up the water in the most magical way. A couple of us jumped in and watched the fish scatter, creating some awesome bioluminescent streaks through the water.
Once everyone was back on board, it was 9:30, and many of us showered and began to settle down for the night.