Location: Malolo Island, Fiji
After an incredible day yesterday, we all slept like logs last night and woke up to another beautiful sunrise this morning. As skipper, I had the task of waking all the students up. Honestly, today was an easy job because many people were already awake to see the gorgeous and peaceful morning. For those that were still snug in their bunks, they woke up to my favorite wakeup song, “Three Little Birds,” followed by some more upbeat tunes to get the energy going. Everyone quickly made their way on deck to get the anchor up and get moving back to Malolo Island. We waved a bittersweet goodbye to Navadra Island as we headed back to Malolo. We were expecting strong winds and a choppy little passage, but it ended up being pretty calm and very fun and beautiful. We enjoyed Riley’s delicious cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting, fruit, and COLD orange juice for breakfast on the way. We treasure every minute we get to be in our watch teams, so we did a 1-hour watch rotation and arrived in Malolo at lunchtime.
After a yummy and filling lunch of chicken quesadillas, Niko got ready to leave the DSD, or Discover Scuba Dive, for Lolo and Steph. This is usually the final task for the divemasters in training, and they sure made him work for it. Lolo and Steph did every silly and goofy thing they could to make the task more difficult, but Niko persevered in the end, and he is now a Divemaster! As soon as they got back from the DSD, Elle, Steph, and Lolo became dive victims for the final rescue scenario for the Rescue diver class. Steph was panicking at the surface, Elle was unresponsive at the surface, and Lolo was missing underwater. In case you just tuned in, this was a simulated scenario for training; no one was injured in the process of creating 13 new rescue divers! They went through a few stumbles in the scenario, but after a much better re-do, they PASSED! So many new diver certifications today.
Finally, the students have jumped in their showers (their favorite) and got ready for a final tasty meal from Riley and his galley crew. It was a pretty breezy and cool evening, so a hearty minestrone soup with fresh bread and cookies was quite a treat. Currently, the PSCT class is taking their last exam (Business and Law), and everyone is working on cards or hanging out and enjoying the last few days of time with this big floating family that we love so much.
Pictured:
Sunrise at Navadra Island
Una, Sam, and Ezra relaxing on our short hop back to Malolo
Watch Team 3 in the cockpit