Location: Saba
Oh, what a great day to wake up moored on the side of the beautiful Saba. The island is a large volcanic rock that emerges from the depths of the oceans, and seeing the morning sky surround us as the island seemed to loom over us was a pleasure. As amazing as the island is from above the water, we are all addicted to scuba, so naturally it was only right that we had to blow some bubbles. So around 8:30, Otto and his crew came to pick us up so we could do our first two Advanced Open Water dives! The first dive we did was a deep dive to 23.7 meters, where we saw around four turtles, and a meter-long stingray! On the dive, we learned about the effects of different atmospheres as we descended, as well as color changes in depth. On our second dive, we did a Fish Identification dive, which was very nice because now we all know the names of the different corals, fish, and creatures we saw while diving today. It is a true miracle that while we are confined to the 3000 psi that sit in our tanks, there are hundreds of thousands to millions of different things that are able to survive at that depth, and there are still species being discovered every day. Helping teach this section of our day was definitely a highlight because it always feels good to pass on knowledge about something you are passionate about in hopes that it helps inspire the next person.
After some great dives, we headed to land to do some exploring of the Dutch Caribbean island, which is ripe with culture, beautiful architecture, and plenty of people willing to share their end of the story. It is always fascinating meeting the people from these islands, finding out how they get there if they were not born there. After some exploring, we got taken back to Ocean Star for a lovely evening playing in the water, learning more about fish from our very own PHD graduate Ignacio, and having some delicious food. Thank you, Saba, for putting on an absolute scuba show for us today. You never fail to disappoint.