Location: Marina Cay
Today started like any other day; we were woken up at around seven by Joey’s awesome music- I think he reallyyy likes reggae. We had a relaxed morning, where we went to Pirate Song (a different boat) to study our final books on our diving specialties!!
We spent 4 hours there and eventually had some time to kill; Mengmei and Oey battled it out on our boat’s resident card game, Speed. It was introduced to us by Sophia, and now everyone is playing it- Brian actually played his first rounds of Speed before dinner, and absolutely ate; he won twice!!! Emme and I were cheering him on while Pierce and Breccan were observing from the sidelines (but I think they’ll be venturing into their first games pretty soon).
Anyways, after those 4 hours of study time, we headed back to our boat for a lunch of Kraft Mac n Cheese, while I had some whole wheat pasta and tuna on the side since I have an intricate list of dietary restrictions- I’m so blessed and grateful that the staff are always aware and maneuvering around them; thanks so much Grace, Amanda, and Joey!!
However, during lunch, something scandalous took place; the mystery of drawings on the cushions of the other boat! Since we studied there earlier this morning, everyone was a suspect. Blake was very adamant in stating his case, and Breccan played detective with Joey. Sophie and I had to give an in-depth review of our day, but eventually we came to the conclusion that it really couldn’t be any of us, although it was still an amazing piece of entertainment! Yet the mystery is still unsolved…
Later on, we finally had our first non-training dive and were able to use our underwater cameras for the first time. Our dive site was amazingly creative; old airplanes that could no longer be used were fashioned to look like sharks, and then were sunk to create a spectacular dive site! Oon and Oey finished up their Perfect Performance Buoyancy specialty after descending into the water a few minutes before everyone else; they were so lucky they did so, because they spotted a nurse shark. We were all so jelly!
Malika and Sophie had fun capturing their various poses in front of the shark planes with Sophie’s camera. Emme and Sophia were battling it out playing underwater rock-paper-scissors, as well as practicing their underwater front flips. Blake, of course, was as cool as a cucumber, maintaining super sigma (amazing) buoyancy the whole time- Pierce is getting there as well!
Afterwards, we ascended and docked for a short while to refill our fresh water reserve. While waiting, Pierce, Brian, Sophia, and I enjoyed a couple of games of poker with Breccan’s hand-made paper poker chips.
We then took speedy ocean showers and freshened up for dinner, which was tortellini and salad, and was accompanied by Breccan’s powerful speech on what he would do if he were president; he always puts a smile on all of our faces! We would all definitely vote for him.
Currently, Mengmei and Emme are playing an exciting game of Speed, while Oon and Oey are sitting by me and watching the game. Everyone else is finishing up their boat jobs- Blake, Malika, and Pierce are working hard as deckies (who clean the deck). Teamwork makes the dream work!
We all miss our families a lot, yet we are also so blessed to be going to this amazing camp, enjoying ourselves, and making new friendships. We’re halfway done, and everyone is having conflicting feelings; we are all excited to be reunited with our families, but we will be sad to leave our new family here.
Much love from everyone!!
-Izzy