Location: Portsmouth, Dominica
Day 59 really snuck up on me as I find myself in charge of the blog once again. Also, Happy easter! Instead of an Easter bunny leaving chocolate and jelly beans, we had the Easter Whale show up to deliver us coconuts and beef jerky. Today is day four in Dominica, which started off beautiful as ever; no double rainbows this morning, but clear ocean views sufficed. Keaton, Addison, and Katie worked hard in the galley to deliver some delicious lemon poppy seed muffins for breakfast. Soon after cleaning up, we stumbled into the salon to take our marine biology exam, which I personally think went well, Steve might think otherwise, but we’ll see… Seamanship followed with more navigation practice, and I can confidently say that I would put a ship right up on the rocks if I were solely responsible for navigation, but it’s just practice right? Anyway, we finished up our dead reckonings and had some time to set up dive kits for continuing our rescue diver course! We plopped into the water one by one and began our “unresponsive diver at the surface” training and out-of-air situations on the bottom.
I hopped in with Max, and we went over rescue breaths (mouth to mouth resuscitation) and managing an unresponsive diver at the surface. I don’t know much about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but I do know one thing, you always get your teeth involved. Max seemed off-put by my suggestion and just wanted to blow on my cheek instead of actual mouth-to-mouth contact, which I reluctantly obliged. After some rescue breath practice, we descended below the surface, but Max forgot his weight belt, so just I descended without my partner, but Ash was there, so it was legal. I felt lonely on the bottom, everyone else had a partner, but I was left stranded and cold, 30 feet under. But alas, Max returned to the surface to grab his weight belt, and by the grace of Poseidon’s Trident, he emerged from the light, properly kitted and handsome as ever. It was an Easter miracle. We then practiced out-of-air situations on the bottom, sharing air and whatnot. Max provided me his spare regulator when I was “out of air,” we locked arms and ascended back to the surface. Once we emerged, I began to feel seasick, so I floated between groups until we left the water.
Dinner was served on time and absolutely delicious. The galley crew absolutely outdid themselves today. We finished up the night with an Easter scavenger hunt. We don’t have easter eggs, and nobody was really willing to share their candy, so instead, we hid sticky notes all around the boat, which eventually led to the discovery of the playboy bunny cake! Altogether a great Easter, and looking forward to another beautiful day in Dominica tomorrow.