Location: Port St. Charles, Barbados
We don’t have to wake up early, but we do anyway. Most of the crew has taken to running or other forms of exercising on land and showering before breakfast at 7:30. Some also try to scratch some minutes before breakfast to get in some additional WiFi time. By now, the kind waitresses know us by name and smile at us as we spend our time waiting for showers, ordering luxuries known only to land life, such as lattes and ice cream. Most were wide awake quite early before breakfast, and we enjoyed an early start to the day.
Today, everybody was diving. The students preparing to obtain their open water certification had their first open water dive. After two days of practicing and refining skills in confined water, they finally got to experience the thrill of a real dive. They were assisted by our three divemaster candidates. In the afternoon also, the shipmates who are working towards their advanced diver certification got to dive. They could enjoy the clear and breaming-with-life Caribbean waters.
Arriving in Barbados after a long passage across an ocean and up the West Atlantic coast has provided us with a new perspective on the world. The red color is lost beneath the surface of the sea, something we have been studying in both marine biology and oceanography, and we are able to free ourselves to some degree from the limits of gravity underwater. Entering this new world of marine life gives us a new appreciation for the incredible world around us and all the incredible possibilities that it can offer to us.
And tomorrow, we get to do it again!