Location: Friendship Bay, Bequia
My day began much too early for a normal human being due to the huge swells rolling the boat all night and my 4 AM anchor watch. After a few hours of doing work, Steph and Katie prepared breakfast while I attempted to wake up the crew. After about 15 minutes, all but one were standing tall, ready for the day. In hopes of drawing Olivia out of bed, I called to her once more and rubbed my hand against her arm. Her eyes jolted open, and she glared at me until I laughed. She did not laugh. Once we were all on deck, she was a bit grumpy, but that is a pretty regular thing, though. After breakfast, those of us getting our advanced diver certification went out for our first skill-testing dive, the boat dive. Literally, all we had to do was enter the water off of a boat and dive for 20 minutes or more. Peyton, Kelsay, Duncan, Matty, and I all completed the first dive thanks to our super cool instructor Steve. On our dive, we got to see some really beautiful things; my favorite was the Christmas tree worms just because they are so cute and fluffy. I think Kelsay and Peyton would agree. Steve lost his prescription mask, so he wasn’t really too much help when I asked him what something was as he couldn’t even see who was right in front of him. Once returning to the boat and removing my dive booties, I was blessed with the return of trench foot, this time with way more salt sores. I thought it was pretty funny, but everyone else seemed to think it was just gross. After we tidied our gear, we were all given a bit of time to do work or sleep. Most of the boys chose the latter, as they normally do. Soon came lunch. Baked potatoes. Yum! After, Master Wiggin ordered us all to clean our bunks before we were allowed shore time. Some of us were very displeased by this as we had prepared ourselves for shore time during lunch in an aim to optimize our time off the boat. Soon enough, Ian began to dinghy us all to shore. This was his favorite part of the day, as he later told us. He really enjoyed the range of emotions he saw as he brought the land-starved students ashore. Steve called him a nerd; I did too. Once our wobbly sea legs regained mobility, Kelsay, Peyton, and I went on a secret walk up a huge hill to a bizarre restaurant/bar for some ice cream. We each had two helpings. Our walk back to the others was quick and easy, being downhill and all, nonetheless the sun was scorching, and we were all dripping. We dropped our things at the hotel bar where everyone was sitting and ran into the water. Pure joy overcame me as the cool saltwater enveloped me. It diminished a bit when that cool salty water splashed right into my mouth and down my throat. We swam around in the water for what felt like hours, avoiding seagrass, body surfing, and making up weird little games. The rest of our time, onshore, was much less exciting and not really worth mentioning. I was among the first group to return to the ship, mostly so I could shower and have some time away from the crowd. Also, because Steve was back on the ship, and I have less than 60 days to make him my friend. Soon came a very spicy dinner, then squeeze. I asked everyone if they could relive any moment once more what would it be. I chose to answer last. Everyone had really cute and meaningful answers, whereas mine was borderline psychotic. I would return to the day I sliced my cheek open on my fireplace when I was too young to really remember the amount of blood that poured out of my face. Will said I was pretty metal. Ian said I was crazy. Both are accurate. Our final activity of the day was a marine biology class with none other than the famous Steve. If you can’t tell already, I think Steve is pretty cool.
Not much else happened after class, other than Steve calling Ian a nerd again and Lucy giving me back scratches while I wrote this blog and ate celery.
Here is a poem written by Peyton to describe my thoughts throughout the day (every day):
steve steve steve steve stevfge steve s tesvefsefgsevsweaDSFv
Thanks for tuning in. I’ll be back again.
P.S. The poem was written by Steve, not Peyton; he just won’t let me have any freedom while writing this.