Location: Kuata, Fiji
This morning, I woke up to a beautiful sunrise, as always, on this beautiful boat. My job as skipper for the day required me to wake up early (at around 6:30 AM) and wake the rest of the crew up at around seven, but luckily for me, there were already a bunch of people awake. Breakfast today was breakfast burritos, which were absolutely delicious, prepared by our head chef, Elanore, and sous chefs, Iain and Addy. What’s after breakfast, you may ask? MANTA RAYS! It all started with me and maybe two other people sitting on the deck after breakfast cleanup, and then we heard a big splash. A manta ray had just jumped out of the water. Then it was on. We quickly lowered our lovely dinghies, Plaai and Nopadone, into the water. Everyone rushed onto the dinghies, and we motored over to where we saw the commotion and hopped in. Boom, right underneath us, a massive melanistic manta ray started barrel feeding, which was super cool. The current was super intense, so it was quite the leg workout to swim against the current.
After the manta rays, we got back on our lovely home, Argo, and got her ready to go on our fourteen nautical mile passage from Drawaqa to Kuata. I provided Moral support for the crew while they hoisted the anchor, which is not a job for the faint of heart. For lunch, our cooking committee threw together some wonderful bhan mi sandwiches, which consisted of freshly made bread (thanks, Spencer), chicken, and some homemade coleslaw of some sort. The spicy mayo Iain put together was the real creme de la creme. After lunch, we had a Marine bio class where we were given fifteen different fish species to remember, and luckily for me, two of my favorite fish were on it, the Emperor Angelfish and the Moorish Idol. We also had to do a charades game for Marine Bio about some of the founding fathers, and that was a really interesting time.
Once we arrived in Kuata, the weather was absolutely beautiful. The sea was very calm, and there was minimal wind. Some of the other D-MITS and I did some knowledge reviews, and then it was shower time. The sunset today was absolutely incredible. A few other crewmates and I took this time to goof around in the water, jumping off the side of the boat and other tomfoolery. Dinner was nacho bowls, which was splendid. After dinner, our captain, Tomer, gave us a little story about his past life, which was pretty cool.