Location: Friendship Bay, Bequia
I yelled down the stairs. “Wake up, wake up. It snowed 5 inches up on deck, and Santa left us all presents!” This one my only hope for awakening my fellow sleepy friends.
We decided that today was a good day to move Ocean Star to the other side of the island and anchor in friendship bay with the hope for better diving conditions. Sure enough, the conditions were much better than the swelly and stirred-up ocean bottom we tried diving in previously. The Open-water divers prepared their gear and proceeded one by one, plopping of the boat and plunging into the water. It’s hard not to laugh at one another struggling across the deck with our wetsuits, weight belts, tanks, flippers, and fogged-up masks. Most of us newbies feel quite ridiculous, but we all have aspirations to be as graceful as our instructor Scuba Steve one day. Once in the water, we followed the anchor chain down with our partner to the ocean floor… We saw the little mermaid brushing her hair so elegantly on her rock. Not really… We actually saw lots of sea urchins. This dives intention wasn’t to see sea life but to rather master our scuba skills so we can almost be officially certified! We practice skills such as completely flooding our masks with water and then blowing air forcefully through our noses to create an abundance of bubbles that push the water out from our masks. We also become familiar with situations in which we are out of the air and need our buddies rescuing. While Matty and I wait for our turn to do skills, we typically play a quick round of rock paper scissors underwater ( in which I always lose), and today I finally won! After our dIve, the certified divers took the Dingy to a nearby reef and dove for a while.
Later on, Elle, Katie, and I turned up some music on the deck and attempted to do ZUMBA with dive weights. Meanwhile, Matty and Lucy spent hours in the water swimming along with the boat, critiquing their swimming techniques. Once everyone was back from diving, a few games of chess and cards were played, leadership papers got final edits before being turned in, and showers were taken.
To top off the night, we indulged in one of my all-time favorite meals, pad thai, which was then followed by Wiggie’s leadership class.
I hear many laughs up on board, and I must go.
Skipper,
Kelsay