Location: Great Astrolabe Reef, Fiji
This morning started similarly to when I was skipper last. I once again got to wake up everyone early. I think the staff members are giving me a present by letting me wake everyone up at 6:30. After I got everyone out of bed, we ate some banana pancakes made by Caleigh, which were good, and raised the anchor to set sail to go diving. Everyone was going to be able to get two fun dives in on the fourth largest barrier reef in the world, The Great Astrolabe Reef. While everyone was getting their gear set up, I decided to work on my project as skipper for the day: get a picture of everyone while they were not expecting it. Ive titled my portfolio Everyones Face When They Hear Me Say Their Name. As you can see, there were many scowls as they heard my voice and turned to look at me only to be met with my camera. Then the first two groups hopped in the water to start their dive. As they were getting in, a message came around, ushering my group into the water. I hurriedly got my gear together with my group; Pierce, Jennifer, Caroline, and Gabe. We swam over to the dive site, Vanua Kula Island, and descended upon giant coral heads and forests of branching coral. It was so fun honing our craft, floating up and down and all around the coral. There were jungles of Christmas Tree Slugs, courts of Royal Angelfish, and many more species of fish that I couldnt identify. To quote my dive leader and truddy partner, Gabe, it was like a playground underwater, and it was like taking a bath in an aquarium. There were even whispers flying around the boat that a couple of groups had seen a shark. We surfaced and swam back to Argo to have some naan and rice and other things for lunch. What were those other things? Naan of your business. Once we finished cleaning up from lunch, we took a vote to go back to the place we dove before, the known, or go try out a new spot, the unknown. In the spirit of the day, we chose to enter the unknown. We loaded up the dang-dangs with our scuba gear and disembarked from Argo while it was not anchored to the ground. We went over to our dive site, Usbourne Passage, which turned out to be a giant wall of coral that went from the surface to over 60 feet deep. To use Gabes wording once again, it was epic, but not exactly epic, but epic we swam next to a huge wall of coral with many different fish for around 40 minutes before heading back to the surface and catching a dinghy ride back to Argo. I dont really know what happened afterward because I was tired and passed out until dinnertime. We ate dinner, anchored back in our anchorage, and did our nightly squeeze. And now we are setting up for Moana movie night.