Location: Sandy Spit, Green Cay
Day 11 started off on a very rainy note – those of us who made the grave mistake of sleeping outside were woken up by a torrential downpour of rain, soaking the entire cockpit and forcing us inside, where we slept until all of us woke up to the soundtrack to Despicable Me. Our chefs, Darby and Lauren, brought out a delicious breakfast of bagels with cream cheese, which we quickly finished, and then set out on a sail to a reef where we attempted turtle tagging. We all got in the dinghy to ride over to Good Times, the other Dolphin/Neptune boat, to get a lesson from one of their staff on proper turtle tagging procedure. Then half of us grabbed onto a line hanging from the dinghy and got towed around the site, Brewer’s Bay, to look for turtles while the other half just snorkeled around, and we switched off after about 20/30 minutes. Jules *claims* he saw a turtle, but we’re all pretty sure it was either a mirage or a rock (definitely just a greenish rock). Darby got to wear his insanely long free-diving fins for turtle tagging, which definitely would’ve been super helpful if we had seen any turtles. However, there were some super cool moon jellyfish that we all got to touch, which totally made up for the lack of turtles. Then, our chefs prepared a delicious, albeit messy, lunch of chicken salad sandwiches, which fueled us for the rest of the day and involved a lot of learning about diving and marine biology. We (the Pure Joy III Neptunes) completed and went over our second Boat Diver knowledge review while the Dolphins headed over to Good Times to meet up with their Neptunes and dissect a squid. Kiran licked the dead squid (everybody thought it was gross but tbh I probably would’ve licked it too, very jealous of the Dolphin’s dissections). While the Dolphins were still dissections, the Good Times Neptunes came over to our boat to learn more about scuba equipment, which was surprisingly super interesting and definitely one of the best lectures so far. Then we competed in a blindfolded gear setup competition, and my team (ules, Emma L, Lauren, Maddie, and I) won !! (Our prize is getting to pick the movie for our movie night, which we are currently deliberating about. Unfortunately, the staff refuses to let us watch American Psycho. Anyways, after that, everyone went back to their respective boats, and we kitted up for our second official boat dive. But what it really meant was that we got sent off on our own in buddy pairs to navigate on our own, and the site Shark Point. Calvin, who had been having sinus issues throughout all of camp, finally completed a dive in its entirety and, along with his dive buddy, Teddy, saw a shark and stingray! (I am extremely jealous). My dive buddy, Emma L, and I tried extremely hard to navigate and saw a super cool eel, but in the end, we got lost until we saw the bubbles of the two instructors who were diving and followed them back to the boat. Aside from that, it was a gorgeous dive with a ton of cool rocks and crevices. The rest of the Neptunes all made it back safely after an awesome dive and are now all officially certified as PADI Boat Divers! While we were doing that, the Dolphins completed their third official research dive to study the effects of temperature on coral bleaching in the BVI and got a bunch of quality data. After breaking down our gear, we sailed to my absolute favorite part of the day, a beach called Sandy Cay. It was just our boat there, and it looked like a beach you’d see in a movie. As I was swimming out it had just finished raining and there was a full rainbow over everyone, it was so picturesque and everyone had a great time at the beach. Emma Y and Maddie went off on an adventure to see the sights, and Alivia hit Jules in the head with a volleyball, which she says is the highlight of her day. Gabriel had a great time swimming around, and Lauren participated in a game of Chicken that was extremely entertaining to watch. After a very eventful afternoon, Lauren and Darby cheffed up some scrumptious chili. Then, we did our nightly squeeze and watched an insanely aesthetic sunset from the hardtop of the boat. Now, cookies are out in the oven, and we’re about to start a movie, and to everyone reading, we miss you! ❤️
– Ruby
P.S. Hi, mom and dad! Miss you guys, and I’m having so much fun!