Location: Underway to Mauritius
This morning, I hopped out of bed at 6:50 and went into the head to brush my teeth before I did wake-ups for everyone. I was still half asleep when I was plunged into darkness and heard a panicked whisper from Smash, who had turned the lights off and was saying she had been watching Steph and Wes dive but got distracted by dolphins and lost them, and I couldn’t find them. That was when I realized I was once again facing another simulated rescue diver scenario. I quickly ran out to put my bathing suit on and get upstairs to assess the situation. As soon as I was up the companionway, I was face to face with a dripping-wet Jackson who looked distressed. I put on my mask and looked for my fins and couldn’t find them, so I jumped in to help Steph(this was the exact opposite reaction I was supposed to have), who was a panicked diver screaming about sharks blinding her and how Wes was missing underwater. Eventually, Jackson and I completed the scenario and debriefed with our instructors, Steph, Jake, and the divemasters in training, Wes and Allie. Jackson and I received the feedback that they were impressed with how much worse our skills had gotten from last time and that we scored a 2/10 on our test — oops. After that ordeal, we all had breakfast that Audrey, our head chef for the day, made for us. Then, we began passage prep to get underway to Mauritius. Lucia took over my skipper duties of looking important and holding the clipboard to make sure we completed everything on our list before we left. While Lucia and everyone else prepared for passage, Jackson and I were pacing around the boat, anxiously awaiting our next scenario to strike. Eventually, Wes came up panicked, saying Steph was dead, and Jackson and I snapped into action to redeem ourselves. This time, we delegated jobs to bystanders, threw life rings, set our tanks up, and eventually brought Steph up and gave her CPR once we pulled her onto the dinghy. Our score? 7.5/10, much better than our previous debrief. After that, everyone had lunch, and we pulled up our anchor and “set sail” with very, very little wind. We all said goodbye to Cocos Keeling and watched as the last piece of land we would see for the next two weeks disappeared. The coolest part of saying goodbye to Cocos Keeling was the blue clouds above it. Since the island is an atoll, which we learned about in marine bio, the sand is so white that it reflects off the blue watercolor into the clouds. After a little while of being underway, Tom and Smash saw a whale breech which we were all a little suspicious of because no one else saw it. We had an Oceanography class where we took a quiz, which everyone was very nervous about. We later found out that the class average on the quiz was 105%. Then, we had leadership class where Ayden and Allie did their presentation and made us do a group activity that involved one person blindfolded, one with noise-canceling headphones, and the other who lost the ability to speak. Watch Team 1 kicked off watch after class, and then we had Audrey’s dinner of grilled cheese and tomato soup. We finished the day off with my squeeze question, which was, who are the persons to you rights celebrity look alike? Kasey got Randall from Monsters Inc. because she’s so scary to wake up for watch, Griffin got Big Bird due to his height and the stunning yellow foulie he wears on a crisp 75-degree night, I got Peppa Pig for an unknown reason, and everyone else got Shakira. We are all very excited to be underway to Mauritius and undertake our longest passage of the trip. Miss you, Mom, Dad, and Skye!!!!