Location: Barbados Mooring Fields
Today was truly a great day when Barbados pulled out her best aquatic tricks for ussome good and bad. The morning started off for me at 6:30 when I joined Kackie, Ben, Cecily, and Benny for a morning dip off the side of the boat. We swam around and had some laughs while enjoying the calm morning sunrise before Ben, Nicole, and I grabbed our snorkel gear and hopped back in to do some free diving and snorkeling. We swam around observing the Parrot fish and other reef fish before I spotted something incredible. Out of the blue emerged one of the ocean’s most stunning creatures, known as a Spotted Eagle Ray, soaring through the water to grace us with its beauty. I quickly shouted to Ben and Nicole to come over which prompted Kackie and Cecily to jump back in to share this special moment with us. We watched in awe as this ray went along the reef, eating and relaxing before it swam away to start its day just as we were about to do.
After a bit of a morning adrenaline spike, I went downstairs to wake up the crew for a delicious breakfast courtesy of our head chef, Talia, and her sous chefs, Benny and Eli. They made us Fry Bread, which many of us had never had before, but most of us could not get enough of it as soon as we got a taste. After a fueling breakfast the newer divers got ready for their morning of diving. The first dive of the day for them was beneath our beautiful home Argo. Shadowed by her hull, they swam around, practicing using their navigation tools and seeing all the stunning creatures that were hidden beneath the surface of the water. They saw lots of Parrot fish, Squirrel fish, Spotted Moray Eels, and even some Pufferfish. After a quick change of dive tanks for some fresh air, they threw their kits into the dinghy and went off to dive their first shipwreck called Pamir!
While the newer divers were getting some more dive time under their belts, the advanced divers had some free time on the boat to catch up on academics, go for a swim, catch up on sleep. or read a book (I am currently reading “The Denial of Death”). Once the morning dive group emerged from the depths and came back to the boat, we had a quick lunch before the advanced group did a giant stride off the boat, eager to get below the waves being brought on by a few storm clouds that had moved our way. The advanced diver’s first dive was also a navigation dive but with some more advanced skills. Whenever you dive, you need a buddy for two reasons. Reason 1 is for safety, and reason 2 is so you have someone to share a funny story with (this will make sense in a moment). The five advanced divers descended to the bottom with our staff member Meg, where we were instructed to swim the length of Argo’s hull while keeping count of our kicks, which is one way we can tell how far we have traveled. After this, Meg asked for my dive buddy Kara and me to swim 50ft, turn around, and navigate back. This is a relatively easy task; however, those storm clouds brought some lower visibility than what the morning dive group had. Needless to say, after we turned around and swam back to where we thought our boat would be, there was no boat to be seen. Now, do not panic because we did not panic. In fact, we were laughing under the water at our situation. Our diving instructors, as well as our training in general, prepare us for situations like this. Kara and I took a look around and started to use some of the coral structures that looked familiar and attempted to guide our way back using some clues that nature gave us. I, however, am not Nancy Drew and am not good at picking up on the clues of the ocean. After trying to swim a few different ways while having our compass guide us and not finding the boat, Kara and I decided to surface to avoid getting more lost. We surfaced and turned to see the bow of Argo rather far away, which caused Kara and I to erupt in laughter that neither of us had experienced in our lifetimes. While laughing and debriefing our underwater adventure, we swam back to the bow of the boat and descended to the bottom, where we rejoined the group and finished our navigation skills successfully.
After a quick tank change, we headed out to the shipwreck and hopped right into the water, ready to see what the blue world was ready to show us. We descended to 65ft, which marked the completion of all the training dives needed to become certified advanced divers. The wreck was beautiful and held a host of some of the Caribbean’s most well-known fish. We saw many, including my favorite, the Smooth Trunk Fish. We swam through a very open part of the wreck, where Zac found a pocket of air trapped by part of the wreck. We all took turns sticking our hand into it and getting rather weirded out by feeling the air while being 50ft below the surface. After swimming around for a bit and getting some epic dive pics courtesy of Kiki, we made our ascent to the surface, where Shane and Eli picked us up and took us back to the boat.
After we took our dive kits apart and were showered, we joined in the cockpit for a delicious dinner thanks to our hard-working chefs. Ben even spoiled us by making us a surprise chocolate cake for dessert. As the skipper for the day, I am in charge of waking up the crew and keeping them on schedule, as well as preparing a question for after dinner. After the question is asked, we usually do a little something to signify the end of dinner, like doing the wave as a group or some other silly thing. Tonight, however, I challenged my fellow crew mates and staff to try and brush their teeth with their non-dominant hands, which can help create neuroplasticity as well as prevent dementia. If you are at home and are reading this try to brush your teeth with your other hand tonight. Well, that’s all for today, folks. Join us tomorrow for your regularly scheduled programming.
P.S. A little shout-out to my people at home. Mom, dad, sister, and grandparents, I miss you all very much -special shout-out to Gavin and Michele for also being so supportive of me and all my adventures. I can’t wait to share more of my stories with you all in a little over a month!