Location: Fam, Indonesia
As we sit in our squeeze circle after dinner, most of us shared that our appreciations from the day were, in fact, the entire day itself… It began as the sun rose above 7 or 8 hammocks, their inhabitants sleeping soundly in the cool morning air. After a yummy breaky of chia pudding, the 80-dayers learned all about tides in Oceanography while 40B peeps worked on their Emergency First Responder certification. As the day warmed up, Anabelle, Reagan, Kylie, and I prepped our dive kits and briefed Gabe for the last dive of our PADI Advanced Open Water certification, the underwater navigation dive. Once we were in the water, Kackie turned the dinghy around to pick up the others back on Argo for dinghy school! On our navigation dive, we backrolled into the most beautiful, turquoise, clear waters just off of a gorgeous beach with lush jungle behind it. As we descended to the shallow, sandy bottom, we caught glimpses of the corals and fishes we would soon see.
We learned how to count our kick cycles to measure distance, how to navigate underwater using a compass, and how to find our way back to the dive boat using underwater landmarks that we mentally noted on the way. We saw so many corals: finger corals, huge plate corals, massive boulder-like corals, all alive with schools of small, colorful fish, rainbow parrotfish zipping back and forth, goatfish sifting through the sand, and vibrant, feathery worms swaying with the waves. It was truly a treat to experience the reef so personally. After successfully completing the dive, we reluctantly left the beach to meet up with the dinghy schoolers, now officially Argo-certified to drive Plaii, one of Argo’s two dinghies! Such an exciting time to be alive, y’all. And it gets better! We all went back to the beach for a picnic lunch and some snorkel time! We had a blast horsing around in the water, getting some good footage of the reef, and playing soccer on the sand! Then it was time for class again, but imagine having your marine biology class on the most picturesque beach you’ve ever seen. Now add some fun sketching of organisms (it was a science illustration lab) and some reading + relaxing, and it was literally the best class I’VE ever had. After class, we couldn’t leave just yet, so we stayed and splashed around for a couple more hours before heading back to Argo for… BOOM SWING TIME, BABY, YEAHHHHHH!!! When I tell you we’ve been looking forward to this moment for the whole trip, I am not exaggerating. To set up the swing, we tied a dock line around the end of the boom and trimmed the boom all the way out of the boat over the water. Using the boat hook to grab the dock line, we climbed over the lifelines and jumped off of the cap rails, flipping and cannon-balling and belly-flopping into the sparkling water below. Folks, ask your kids to show you the pictures and videos because I’m only including one here, and there are so many SICK AMAZING ones!
We swung and swung for an hour and a half until dinner when Olivia’s walking taco bowls hit the spot, and we got our second incredible sunset in a row. And this brings us back to our squeeze circle. The question of the day: If you were to be arrested, what would it be for? Common answers included overstaying a visa, trespassing to go on cool hikes, and public urination (cause sometimes ya just gotta go). Tonight, we will update our dive logbooks, study for our marine biology exam tomorrow, put the finishing touches on our leadership essays, and take in the sight of southern hemisphere stars from our hammocks before we move to cross the equator again in less than 48 hours. Our days here are jam-packed, but they’re some of the best days that we’ve ever had and will probably ever have. Our sincerest gratitude goes out to everyone who helped plan, fund, and create this adventure! We’ll see ya soon, back underway! Peace out.