Location: Bequia
Today was a very relaxing day for the crew of Ocean Star. Well, it may be a bit stressful for the crew as they cram for their Oceanography midterm tonight. Nonetheless, the day was spent abroad studying, catching up on work, and having a little diving fun to break it all up. The students are getting further along with their advanced water diving certification by completing their wreck dive today. The Statham Tugboat wreck lies in roughly 60′ of water, sitting upright with the top of the boat at about 15′. The ball that marks the wreck had gone missing, so it took us a while to locate the ship. As we trawled for the wreck, I free-dove down when I saw some debris on the bottom. As the debris ended up being nothing, I turned to swim back to the surface, and right in front of me, out of the gloom, appeared a massive dark shape. Two quick kicks toward the object revealed the bow of the vessel looming above me. As I kicked slowly to the surface, I came up over the bow, along the foredeck, up to the wheelhouse, and finally to the surface. If you have never seen a shipwreck underwater, it is quite an impressive sight!
Especially when it catches you off guard, the Statham tugboat is roughly 40′ to 50′ with plenty of growth on it and fairly well intact still. To have that looming above you and appearing out of your field of vision is like stepping into a ghost story. Here once walked people just like you, but now none remain. It’s a little over-dramatized, but still, it’s very cool to experience. The crew all felt the same as the dive, which was a big hit for all. Now, the day is coming to a close, and dinner cleanup is underway. I step on deck briefly, and I can hear the talk of science questions as the students involved in dish clean up take advantage of working with Laurie to have her quiz them while cleaning. What other university do you know where you can have your professor help you study while you’re cleaning up dishes after dinner? Another unique advantage of Seamester!