Location: Komodo, Indonesia
My morning started incredibly early this morning, waking up for a 3:00 to 4:00 anchor watch. The watch was overall very quiet and peaceful, with me and Adda conversing on a variety of subjects, ranging from how beautiful the night sky was with shooting stars and the rumbles of a distant storm that we could see occasionally flashing in the distance, to just how weird the animal kingdom is. When watch ended, I decided to stay up due to the fact that I was going on a sunrise hike that would take place in a few hours. So I talked to my mom, caught up with her, and fixed myself some apple tea in order to pass the time.
When it came time to wake everyone up, I decided to wake everyone up with a bang, playing Drunken Sailor over a speaker, waking everyone up. From there, everyone who wanted to go on the hike geared up and hopped in Angkarn to head over to the island where the hike was going to happen. Initially, Mac had figured the hike would take around an hour and a half, but that estimate would be heavily off, as Zeke would clear the hike in 14 minutes, winning a bet he had made, earning himself 24 Red Bulls when we were at a place we could actually purchase Red Bull. The rest of us would follow, generally getting up there in 30 minutes or less, and staying up there enjoying the view. We made our way back to the Vela, where we would enjoy some really good bacon, egg, and cheese wraps.
From there, we would be divided into groups of two for the advanced peak performance buoyancy dives, with me being in the second group and going to dive for fun and to help Kyler out if he needed any, since I am a dive master. The dive was beautiful, with coral everywhere as I watched the others perform the skills needed to continue on their way to their advanced certification from above, having taken off my fins to make them into a bench. From there, Kyler would signal for me to lead the group along a coral wall while he returned the weight to Angkarn that he had grabbed in case people needed any. Along the wall, there were tons of sea life, ranging from a big eel hiding in the wall to a small nudibranch. With that, we finished the dive, heading back to the ship, where we would get ready for lunch, some really good Quesadillas, and roasted vegetables, and get underway to see some Komodo dragons.
On our way to Rinca, we would have really interesting and fun Marine Biology and leadership classes with Perry and Emma. With that, the day began to wind down, enjoying some good old BBQ chicken and potatoes. As the day is coming to an end, we are enjoying some lovingly made cookies and preparing for another full day tomorrow, one that will be filled with dragons.
This is Thaxton calling it a night.