Location: Admiralty Bay, Bequia
Hello!
Today was somehow chill and yet also eventful. The morning started off as usual at 7:00 a.m., but for some reason, upon heading down into the saloon to wake up, everyone was already up! That is not normal at all. But it sure made my job easy. Kitchen folks were cheffing away, a research project group was looking at plankton, I think, under the microscope, and others were finishing up some last-minute fish ID logbook drawings. We had a wonderful spread of different flavors of overnight oats for breakfast and gave Max hugs goodbye and a group wave from the starboard side as his dinghy ride took him to dock and then onto his ferry. We’ll miss you a lot, Max. We are all super sad to see you goclean-up time and then a mad rush to set up dive gear.
With a few people out of the water for medical reasons, there was a total of seven divers, and Meg gathered us in the cockpit for an advanced diver navigation dive debrief. We played with compasses and then took our big steps off the boat, regulator and mask in hand. Upon descending, we right away saw one of the coolest fish of the trip, a flying gurnard. However, at the time, we most definitely believed we discovered a new species. It looked like a camouflaged scorpion-type fish at first; however, suddenly, wings popped out from the side, and then 30 seconds later, it started WALKING! Not crawling, not gliding, and not pushing itself along on fins. It walked! Two real-life actual legs were sticking out from under itcrazy, crazy stuff. The rest of the dive, we did some measured kicking and some compass work, saw two octopuses, and so many fun little fish in the seagrass bed. After surfacing, we were all hyped up about the fish and told the other students on board our stories while waiting for lunch and hanging in the saloon. After lunch, we had marine biology class and seamanship class, took some beautiful boat showers in the sunset, and dropped a second anchor. Dinner, a new job, an anchor watch wheel, an interesting debate about an anchor watch time slot bidding war, and clean-up time! Good day.