Location: Sommer's Beach, Tortola
After the action-packed blog of yesterday, it will be near impossible to match. We woke at 7:30, relatively late for these past two weeks, to a breakfast of cereal and scrambled eggs perfectly prepared by Player and Sofia. We sailed around for a bit while the compressor ran, refilling our tanks in preparation. During previous dives, many of us, myself included, struggled with our buoyancy, so our instructors decided it would be beneficial to do a Peak Performance Buoyancy Dive to refresh and teach tricks to coast along the floor of the ocean without disturbing sensitive marine life.
During the sail, we watched a riveting PADI video from the 90s on buoyancy that kept us amused while teaching us quite a bit. We were briefed by RiRi on the tasks we were expected to complete underwater, many of which seemed odd. There was some straightforward swimming exercise, practicing our frog and fin kicks, then some more complex activities like helicopter kicking, where we had to maneuver our fins to spin ourselves around a stationary object while being upside down.
The dive itself was not very full of marine life, though Alex, my dive buddy, and I saw a bearded fireworm and a sea nettle, which Pat later explained the dangers of. We left the water shivering as a strong gust had developed overhead. We dried off and threw on our life jackets, and set sail for Sommer’s Bay. After mooring the boat, we had a competition to see who could assemble dive gear the fastest while being blindfolded. The teams divided, and, unsurprisingly, the team with fewer guys took the crown with Jacob, Finnley, Sofia, Savannah, Amelia, and Olivia trouncing Pat, Player, Alex, Gus, Daniel, and myself.
“Bend the Rules,” our fine home, was the barbecue boat for tonight. While we ate with our crew mates and could not socialize with other boats, we still dressed up for the occasion. Alex and I opened what felt like hundreds of cans of beans for dinner while Savannah, Daniel, and Gus actually cut hundreds of buns. We loaded a dingy up with the grilling supplies, and Sephena and Ri set to work on the beach, preparing food for all 190 hungry members of the Action Quest family.
It is fair to say that our entire boat was thoroughly underwhelmed by the initial barbecue food: one measly hamburger or hotdog for each member of the boat. After still being hungry, we decided to cook up a feast – Savannah whipped up nearly fifteen pancakes while I cooked around five omelets for the boat to fill up on. During clean-up, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that our boat received all of the leftover, uneaten burgers and hotdogs from the beach, so it is unfair to complain. To break up the monotony of repacking the barbecue supplies, we had a small dance party with Pat and Sofia moonwalking to “Ra Ra Rasputin” by Boney M. I’m being called to continue helping out with the unpacking, but today was another great day, and we are all excited for the days to come!