Location: Pearns Bay, Antigua
We woke up this morning to the smell of eggs and sausages in the salon as Nicole and her sous chefs, Steve and Cat, were cooking us some delicious breakfast burritos. After our breakfast, we had a fun clean-up as a perfectly timed squall came through that hit winds as high as 35 knots throwing everyone all over the deck. This morning’s class Marine Biology consisted of an interesting mangrove swim. We started off in water about 3 feet deep and eventually ended up with maybe 3 inches. As we tried to figure out the best way to get around in the shallow water, some students chose the method of army crawling while others chose to walk (more like sink) through the mud. Upon making it to a small sandy patch of land, some of the boys decided to use the mud as an exfoliant, where others had no choice in the matter as they were caught in the crossfire.
Lunch followed, which consisted of an interesting combination of pizza and cheddar cheese, but it turned out to be quite good. We then began our rescue certification class with videos and then some exercises practicing helping tired and panicked divers. The instructors and already rescue certified students may have had a little too much fun acting as panicked divers, with some of the rescue divers in training losing masks or fins in the process of saving them. In the end, all of the panicked and tired divers were saved, and all lost items were recovered. After completing the rescue exercises, Ethan and I went on a reconnaissance mission to find his mask and Ian’s snorkel that were lost in yesterday’s dive. Unfortunately, we were unable to find the lost items, but we had a great dive and got to see some beautiful sites.
We returned to a delicious dinner of spaghetti and homemade garlic bread for dinner and even got some brownies for dessert. This evening we have a nautical science class with Calum, and I am sure many students will be up late as we have our first essay for Marine Biology due tomorrow.