Location: The Bight, Norman Island
Today was a great day for some, starting as early as five thirty. The reason behind such an early awakening is a prank war we have going with Xanadu II, another boat on the dive side. After the egg war, we quickly started our motor to a dive site just off of Cooper Island called wreck alley. While underway, we ate cereal and prepared our dive gear so that we were ready to splash right when we arrived. It was a cool dive where we explored a wrecked tug boat as well as an old barge. While diving, Matt prepared a penetration line inside the wreck for the Neptune students to finish their wreck certification. After the dive, we got to relax a little bit and study for our exams which are in the afternoon.
After a few hours, we prepared for our second dive at Blue Chromis. This was going to be another fun dive, but unlike our first dive, we were able to lead our own dives. All the groups enjoyed the dive exploring and observing the coral, fish, and surrounding areas. My group decided to bring oranges for a much-needed mid-dive snack while about 20 feet underwater. Once all the groups surfaced, we enjoyed some mac and cheese that Katie prepared while we were diving. We then did some more studying and filled out dive logs while Tommy pumped tanks. He then asked us to help put away dive gear from the last dive. Little did we know that it was preparing for our third rescue scenario. A panicked diver rises to the surface resulting in our whole boat quickly getting divers in the water, dive flag up, and preparing oxygen for the diver. When we calmed down the panicked diver, we found out that there were two more divers in the water. One of those divers was unconscious, and we administered oxygen to bring her back to life, and the other was another panicked diver. This was the best scenario we have done yet we received little negative feedback from the six instructors and a whole lot of positive feedback. It was super fun and rewarding for us to have a quick and productive scenario. After the scenario, we did yet again more studying to prepare for our tests while the chefs prepared breakfast for dinner. We all enjoyed dinner but were pretty anxious about the tests right when dinner clean-up was finished. We all took our tests and were relieved when told that everyone passed and we were all officially rescue certified! All the hard work over the past couple of weeks paid off, and we celebrated with some brookies (brownie cookies with Oreo). It was a super busy day, but definitely a fun and rewarding one.