Location: Drawaqa Island
Staff member Kee here. I am the one that gets the students to write the blog, so I figured I better set a good example and write a nice long one today.
Today kicked off like almost every other day around here with a beautiful sunrise. The sun rose over Drawaqa Island as the students all started poking their sleepy little heads up on deck. Most of them woke up on their own accord this morning before the 7 am skipper woke up, so my job of waking them all up was pretty easy.
The galley was bustling by 6 am. Emma as head chef, and her two sous chefs, Kara and Sierra, were busy cooking up tasty breakie sandwich breakfasts with freshly baked bread thanks to Sydney, our bread maker for the day. After a hearty breakfast and swift cleanup, we all got ready to dive.
Almost everyone is now a certified diver, which is very exciting. The first group to dive here was our already certified divers, they had an awesome time, and all came back with huge grins sharing the fish they had seen and so excited to describe the corals. Next, we had our newly certified divers dive. They have now begun their journey toward becoming advanced divers. I had the privilege of taking this lovely group of new divers. Pictured are Barbara, Kirstyn, Romeo, Ethan, and Jack. They all did really great, and some of them saw a white-tip reef shark which was pretty neat. Emma also completed her open water certification today; congrats to her!
We got back to the boat and had a delicious lunch waiting for us. After breaking down our gear and cleaning up, we got ready to snorkel the manta pass. This is a shallow, narrow pass with a nutrient-rich current where mantas often come to feed. We were all really hoping to see a manta here, but unfortunately, today was not the day. We did, however, still have an incredible experience snorkeling the pass with all the incredible corals and, honestly, the biggest schools of reef fish I’ve ever seen. There was a good current kicking even as we entered the pass right around high tide. We all drifted along one by one, just watching all the fish dance along below us. Sierra and Dray had two cute little pilot fish decide to follow them along, which was adorable. Margaret was in the water near me and pointed out another white tip reef shark just peacefully cruising along the bottom. It sure is neat watching them glide around seemingly so effortlessly.
Between groups of snorkelers, students had some free time on the boat to read or study. Most of the students were pretty excited to start their marine bio fish ID projects. I think most have them have actually recorded and ID’d more fish than required for their assignment. It is so awesome to see the enthusiasm.
We finished our last drift through the pass and headed back to the boat, watching the horizon as the sun began to set. Captain Tom was finishing up haircuts at the stern of the boat. I had my shave out down, and some other people got cuts and shaves. We are pretty lucky to have a captain who doubles as a barber onboard. The sunset, we all had dinner, a swift squeeze, and now we are all finishing up our duties for the evening.
Dishes are being done on deck, the salon and galley are being cleaned, the deck is getting scrubbed, and we are preparing for an early morning passage back to Port Dennaru for a quick stop and then onward to Kandavu.
I’ll be handing off the skipper hat to Kara for tomorrow. Goodnight everyone.
And shout out to Alistar (Tom’s dad) miss having you onboard!