Location: Sommer's Beach, Tortola
All was quiet after a peaceful night in Muskmellon Bay until the clocks struck 7 AM… The sound of wake-up music rang through the air, and we all slowly rose from our sleep to a hearty breakfast of oatmeal and fruit. DMs and Vegas were separated shortly after to start (what feels like) our 1,000th rotation day! The Vegas made their way to land to hike for their first rotation. Unfortunately, Lily slipped and landed hand-first on a cactus 😢 (she’s all good), but she at least got some pictures of the awesome view!
Meanwhile, we DMs did a PADI ReActivate workshop, where we did underwater skill reviews with Mackenzie and Jake, who were pretending to be absolutely horrible divers. Hayden, Tyler, Jaden, and I were with Mackenzie while Lila, Alex, and Wylie were with Jake. All of us DMs agree that the workshop took at least 5 years off our lives 🫠.
One tank run and one Vega shuttle later, it was time for the next rotation, where Lila, Tyler, and I finished up our underwater skills with Jake. Also, the Vegas hopped in the water for their open water training dive, after which Juliette reached her major milestone of becoming a freshly certified scuba diver!!! 🎉🥳🤿 Anzie, who is the Vegas’ dive instructor, made it extra official by knighting Juliette with her inflatable diver beacon! We then were blessed by a much-needed lunch of some (absolutely gas) white bean soup before hopping back into fast-paced rotations!
The Vegas headed over to Nomada to learn about navigation and all the different electronics systems on our boats. Alli claims it was super boring (as evidenced by her falling asleep halfway through), but Aggie stayed locked in and is now our resident expert in navigation! Back on Nacho, all the DMs were graciously granted the uncommon opportunity to go on a fun dive at the “Sand Highway”! Everyone had a great time getting to explore and goof around underwater, but I personally didn’t tag along because Anzie requested some DM support from me for her training dive with her students from Oryx (I felt especially philanthropic today 🤗). Afterwards, though, it was back to work for everyone with tank runs and putting dive gear away. Everything went well on that front, but there was a slight sense of sadness in the air, as Tyler wasn’t ripping it up on the dinghy as usual (his driving privileges were revoked for the day, due to his excessive number of “speeding tickets” 😖).
Eventually, all of us Nachos were reunited as we prepared to dip out from our spot at Muskmellon and head down to Sommer’s Beach for our beach BBQ!!! This BBQ was extra special to us all because it marked Juliette’s last night on board, because she’s only at AQ for 14 days rather than the 21 days that the rest of us are here for. Feelings tonight have been bittersweet because Juliette will most certainly be missed, but we also will cherish all the memories we’ve made with her! After the BBQ, we all headed back to Nacho via some dinghy shuttles and took a super fun nighttime ocean shower! 🪼 Our night is now coming to a close with an intense game of spoons going on inside right now! I’m sure we will all get a great night of sleep tonight and will have a great day 14!
Peace!!!
-Avi