Location: Palau
This morning was off to an amazing start as I woke up to a beautiful, clear, sunny diving day. As I am the skipper, I got the privilege of waking up my peers by my method of choice, so today I chose to play a song written and mixed by my roommate at full volume at 6 am. After my lovely wake-up, we all ate breakfast and got ready for our first dive day of 40B! We took the dinghy in and popped by the convenience store to stock up on snacks (a precious commodity after 22 days of snack rationing). Anyways, after that we went to the dive shop to get set up and get on our dive boats. On our dive boats, we traveled south towards the German Channel to dive a couple of reefs. Despite having seen the views from the boat ride over only 4 days prior, the sight of the limestone islands of Palau continues to amaze me every time. At the first dive site, my group of Sophie, Skye, Shay, and Clam saw some beautiful reefs. The more eventful part of that dive was when none of us could properly float during our safety stop, so our guide Ben (shoutout) had to physically pull us up and down to keep us at 15 feet, which we genuinely died laughing about afterward. After that we ate lunch by a little island and then quickly moved to the next dive site, which was genuinely one of the most beautiful reefs Ive ever seen. It was a slope of colorful reefs populated with every species of fish you could imagine. The most exciting part of that was that we got to see upwards of 20 white-tip reef sharks swimming around the area. After the dive, we returned to the dive shop and were given shore time, which a small group and I used to plan out a little day off and eat at a yummy restaurant called Drop-Off. After that, we returned to the boat for ocean showers and dinner. Overall, it was a very classic and chill day and not necessarily one that sticks out, but I think thats whats beautiful about this program. Like, every day is so amazing that a day where I was quite literally swimming with sharks felt like the norm. I am so grateful to be here and for a regular day to be as special as this.