Location: Muskmelon Bay, Guana Island
Today, I woke up at 6:30 am to pouring rain and, 30 minutes later, blasting music. After Antonio, Graham, Reed, and I took down our hammocks, we headed downstairs and put our hammocks in our room. Shortly after, all of us ate French toast made by Tomas and Lawson. About 10 minutes after breakfast, everyone changed into their swimsuits to get ready for a paddle board relay race. The teams were Lawson, Reed, Graham, Devin, and Alex (Team 1), and the opposing team was Hayes, Me, Antonio, Delphina, and Daisy (Team 2). Sadly, the team I was on lost (Team 2), but everyone focused on either pushing over the opposing team or joking around with their friends. After the relay race, everyone went on the dinghy to go to our dive boat and get kitted up in scuba gear. This was the deepest dive any of us have done yet (35 feet) and was super fun! My diving group was Hayes, Graham, and I, and our dive instructor was Stick. After we did buddy checks, got in, and went to the bottom, we had to do two drills, which were hover where you have to be neutrally buoyant (neither sinking nor floating), and we had to take our masks off at the bottom and put them back on which I found pretty scary. Even after the drills it was worth it because then we could swim around and see all of the fish at the reefs when we turned around and went to a patch of sand. We all wondered what it was for, and then Stick took off her flippers, followed and released all of the air out of our BCD (Buoyancy Control Device), and sunk to the bottom. We started to walk on the bottom of the ocean like nothing, and it felt like we were on the moon. WE were doing backflips, cartwheels, handstands, etc., and is an experience I will never forget. But after that, we had to swim back to the boat and ascend. I forgot that we had to do it until stick signaled it, but we had to do an emergency swimming ascent drill, which means that you have to go 20 feet down and then swim up to the top without breathing and while exhaling and making an a-h-h-h-h sound. Graham went first while Hayes and I ascended and waited at the top. Then, both of us had to go back down and do the drill with Stick. After the dive, when we got back on the boat, it was about 11:30, and all of us waited at the boat until a dinghy came and picked us up to take everyone back to the boat for lunch. For lunch, we had chicken salad wraps prepared by Margret because both of the cooks were out diving. At 1:00, we went to do water sports (knee boarding, water skiing, and wakeboarding). My group for water sports on my dinghy was Graham, Reed, Antonio, and I, and on the other dinghy were Lawson, Haynes, Delphina, Daisy, Devin, and Alex. One minute later, after their dinghy left, they came back and threw a dead fish that they saw floating at the surface. everyone started screaming, and then shortly, the fish got thrown back into the water just to sit there dead. On our dinghy, Graham went first, then Antonio, then me, and last but not least, Reed. All of us decided to do knee board, but due to a lot of waves, some of us found it hard to get on our knees. When I went, I started off slow, and then I went on my knees and picked up the line, which shortly went to me drifting in the wake of the dinghy. After we all went back, we wanted to go again because there were no more people left to go, and we had extra time. Margret let us go again, so naturally, we all did. This time, Reed went first and tried wakeboarding, which drastically failed after four attempts. (Getting up on a wakeboard is hard). When I went, I told Margret to go as fast as possible without me either flying in the air or going completely out of control and when she went that fast, I couldn’t see anything and was going really fast. I was struggling for about 30 seconds to hold on but then i couldn’t hold the handle any longer and fell off, flinging me underwater and then I was done with water sports for the day. Shortly after all of us were done with water sports at about 3, everyone went on a hike.The hike started off with everyone climbing rocks to lead us to the stairs leading up the hill. At the top of the stairs, there was an amazing view of a huge cliff, which then led to a dirt path lined with cactuses and trees. Everyone was tired, so we decided to go about halfway through the path and go back. At the beginning of the hike, we had to wait for a dinghy to pick us up, and then we went on over to the boat, glad to be there; it was empty because all of the people on it had just left because they were only staying for ten days. They had made a rope swing on the boom of the boat (big pole coming out of mast) that everyone had swung off of until about 5 when everyone went back to our boat, showered, and ate dinner, also made by Margret. We had Chili and Rice for dinner. While we were showering, all of the kids on a different boat, Shamwari, went to drop off some of the paddle boards they borrowed from us when two came loose and floated down the current. No one realized, but when we did, Tomas jumped in, swam out, and towed them back. After dinner, everyone cleaned up, chilled, and went to bed. Today went by really fast and was a lot of fun for everyone, Love you Mom and Dad.
– Liam