Location: Pitons, St. Lucia
Everyone was lucky enough to have the experience of waking up to country music this AM. I played only m favorites and was only told once (or twice) by Teagan to turn it off. Soon after, we moved into our routine breakfast at 7 AM, which was chia seed pudding. It has been a food I’ve been too afraid to try because of the copious amounts of seeds, but I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. Most definitely a meal I will be adding to my list. Especially after learning it is just milk and chia seeds combined for a few hours in the fridge.
Enough about breakfast, because soon after we finished clean up, it was time to dive. We haven’t had that many chances to dive recently, but this dive easily made up for lost time. I was lucky enough to be the instructor on both dives because, truly, this dive site is now within my top five. The site was called superman because in Superman 2 (from the 80s), he picked a flower for Lois Lane in this exact spot. However, I believe the real reason it’s called superman is that we all flew on that dive. The first dive group consisted of me, Kris, Grape, Jaden, Maria, Joel, and JJo. This dive was a part of their advanced certification, and we did their deep dive. We descended and were immediately swept up by the current, allowing us to simply just drift the whole entire time we were diving. No swimming is needed here, none whatsoever. For this group, we made it all the way to 74 feet, which is their deepest dive yet! We compared colors on our wetsuits and gear from the start of the dive to how it looked underwater at 70 feet. They also compared their depth gauges with their buddy to see truly how deep they dove. Then, for the rest of the dive, we simply got to drift while taking a closer look at all the coral and fish within the area. Some of us even acting out the superman pose. On the second dive, Sophie, Graham, Max, Cleo, Teagan, and I had a chance to dive the same site, but instead focusing on their Fish ID advance dive. They brought down slates to try and identify and name all the fish they usually see when diving in the Caribbean. My personal favorite is all the colorful Parrotfish swimming around. For everyone who was not diving, they gathered more data for their research project or began to put all their information together.
Lunch was another homerun of chicken pitas, and after the dives, the crew was quite hungry. Lunch soon rolled into our afternoon activity of practice for the Navigation Master exam that would be taken in a few short days. Everyone had the massive charts laid out, trying to chart and navigate the channels. We were lucky enough that it was not too windy outside so that everyone could practice on deck. Finally, after a few hours have passed, some people split off to snorkel around our boat or to just hang out with friends. Not long after, the dinner of pesto pasta with salad was brought up on deck for everyone to enjoy. We also were lucky enough to see the famous “green flash” as the sunset for the evening. My squeeze question for tonight was “What would be your last meal,” and many of our answers surrounded ice cream or steak or pizza. My personal answer being cinnamon roll pancakes with frosting and the most perfect iced latte with oat milk. I’m currently drooling as I think about it. Already looking forward to tomorrow and all the excitement it holds.
This is Marles saying goodbye and farewell.
1. Maria pointing at that rainbow
2. That rainbow
3. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (friendship)
4. The Pitons looking quite handsome
5. Classic Galley Crew photo
6. Charthouse Navigation
7. My afternoon view from the bow
8. Jaden and his charts of the world
9. Squinty Kris
10. Galley Crew all matching (very exclusive club)
11. Snorklers navigating the sargasim
12. View from the chart house
13. Teagan working very hard
14. My dog, Monroe, looking very happy on a walk