Location: Cliff Tree Bay, St. Vincent
The morning started with delicious banana bread to fuel everyone for the dive that some later called “the best dive yet.” After everyone was stuffed, it was time to break up into dive groups, gear up, and jump in. My group went in first and, after a brief surface swim, spotted what appeared to be an octopus home. We decided that was a great place to start our dive, so we descended down to find our first octopus friend of the dive. The reef wall was full of marine life with many eels, schools of brown chromis, and so many smooth-trunk fish (the fish that quickly became most people’s favorite fish to see). As we swam along the wall, I was surprised by our second octopus as it swam quickly past my head (using jet propulsion, as everyone learned about in my lecture last week). We then got to watch it walk along the wall and change colors (using some chromatophores that we also learned about this dive, which was practically a study session for my next exam). Once we hit the turning point, we headed back, waved to Heather and the other group on our way, and found our final octopus of the dive before heading back to the boat for lunch.
Lunch was delayed a little due to a rainstorm and an impromptu swim to the beach. Some enjoyed the time for an extra fresh water rinse, while others opted to use it as “spa time.” I’ve heard the black sand on the beach is an excellent exfoliator. With nice rejuvenated skin, we made the swim back to the boat for some stir-fried rice to fuel everyone through an afternoon of classes and passage prep. I had a review session for an upcoming marine biology exam, and Heather taught a class about the gases and nutrients in the ocean. As everyone was learning all the tasks involved in passage prep, the boat was quickly prepared for our sail tomorrow, and the crew enjoyed some free time before dinner and their night snorkel on the reef. As I’m writing this blog, I can hear them yelling about the octopus, so I think they have found our friends from this morning again.