Location: Mountain Point, Virgin Gorda
My name is Wesley, and I’m today’s skipper…
The day began with an early wakeup at ~7 am. After about 20 minutes, everyone had woken up, and we enjoyed a basic but good cereal breakfast. Once we finished eating, we set up our diving gear and set sail for the day’s first dive location: “The Chimneys.” Upon our arrival about an hour later, we put on our dive gear and jumped in. This beautiful dive site was a coral reef that was full of canyons. As we swam over the reef, Tyler spotted and showed everyone two small octopi. We also saw many small fish. We eventually ended up descending into a tiny gorge. It was a tight fit for some of us, but we all made it in. Swimming through the canyon was amazing, and it led us straight through a huge arch!
We then ascended back onto the boat and immediately set sail to our second dive site: “Visible.” On the short ride there, most of us slept, but some of us worked on our on-paper work for underwater navigation skills. Once we got there, we set up our gear and dove in for a navigation skill dive. For this dive we practiced navigating in a U-pattern to help with our search and recovery skills. Jaden and Tate got lost while trying to navigate, but everybody else did well. After we finished our navigation work, we had ~20 minutes to explore the coral reef. It was amazing and featured huge rocks that poked out of the water. Hudson and Catalina found a HUGE rare blue lobster, and Ri found a saddleback pufferfish.
Once we ascended, we set sail to our anchorage point for the day, “Mountain Point.” On the way, we ate a ramen noodle soup lunch, and Alana, Parker, and Eve ate a bunch of cookies that they bought on shore. They found a bug inside, so we fed them to the fish that hung out around our boat.
After we anchored, Siena took us wakeboarding, kneeboarding, and waterskiing. It was my first time, and I failed miserably, but I still had fun. After everybody was done, we came back to the boat and had garden burgers for dinner. It was definitely one of the best meals yet. Then, at night, Kyler (a counselor from Forever for Now) and Rachel taught the emergency first responder material that we will practice tomorrow!