Location: Pigeon Island, Guadeloupe
After a delicious breakfast of Chilaquiles, everybody ventured into the waters around Pigeon Island for a morning of diving. In fact, this was Jacques Cousteau’s favorite dive site, and there is an underwater statue of him! We agree with Jacques that it is a great site, full of so many fish, corals, and sponges. After our morning of diving, we had a fantastic lunch at Galley Made Pizza. Afterward, we completed our Night Dive knowledge reviews, our last ones, before receiving our Advanced Open Water diving certification. Then it was ashore for another open forum discussion as part of SLD. This is where the staff leave us as a group to have an open discussion with each other as equals. We covered topics from boat policies to just fun questions that made all of us laugh. Back on board, we had fun practicing dives and flips off of Ocean Star during our usual ocean showers, always taking advantage of our awesome aquatic surroundings. After another fantastic meal of Sloppy Joe’s provided by Chef Eduardo, we ventured off into the night to have our first-night dive. It was a great night for cephalopods, as the first group saw a squid, and the second group got to see an octopus! We also loved splashing in the water and just seeing all of the bioluminescence as the phytoplankton around us lit up from the physical stimulation. We were greeted back onboard by hot chocolate and were all ready for a good night’s sleep after a full day in the water.