Location: Mountain Point, Virgin Gorda
Today was INSANE! It was definitely the craziest but most rewarding day yet! We started off this morning bright and early at 6:30. After being woken up by Sidney’s awesome music, we enjoyed a quick breakfast of cereal. Our day quickly turned from lazy to chaotic.
The advanced open water boat boarded Mere Cat at 7:30 and geared up to dive. As they hopped in the water, we were briefed on our first rotation of the day. Up first was the last leg of our swim tests. The 800 meters (half a mile) swim with a snorkel and fins, and then the 100-meter tow. Everyone killed it. 🙂
Immediately after finishing our swim tests, the open water students pulled up to the boat. Half of us stayed on Mere Cat and worked with the older open water students, and the other half swam over to the younger open water boat. The students were on the last leg of their confined water dives. DM’s paired up with instructors and their students and got to diving! We got to help the instructors and demonstrate the skills for the open water students.
After that exhausting morning, we got out of the water to enjoy by far the best action quest lunch- GRILLED CHEESE! We all ate at least two of the tasty sandwiches as MORE open water students, and their dinghy arrived. We got to work on our skills work for the next two hours.
Oh my god, at this point, we were exhausted. We had just one more rotation to get through. We repeated the same thing from rotation two; half of us on here cat and half of us with the younger kids. By now, everyone had done three dives, and we did a total of four tank runs. We were EXHAUSTED. We settled down to eat some risotto, chicken, corn, and Cesar salad cooked up by Harley. But the day doesn’t end there…
NIGHT DIVING!!!!!!!! Woohoo!!!
The dive masters were given the option to go open a night dive. Even though it was optional, most of us ended up tagging along.
It was literally so dark, and there were so many people on the boat because the advanced open water divers were night diving as well. It was complete and utter chaos. We filled up three whole dinghies with divers and set a course for the dive site.
The dive masters split up into two groups. Half of us went out on our own for a fun dive, and half of us helped the advanced open water students. I was a part of the group that went out on the fun dive. It was me, Jack, Aiden, Kaleigh, and Maddy. It was one of the coolest dives I have ever gone on! There was so much coral and lots of little creatures creeping around in the dark. We saw one HUGE lobster and one smaller one. A couple of us saw a huge puffer fish. Even though this was a top-tier dive, there was a downfall…
We kinda sorta got super lost. Being the responsible divers we are, we decided to surface since we didn’t quite know where we were. We ended up surfacing a good distance away from the dinghies but made it back a-ok. It took a while to get organized once we got back to Merecat, and everyone showered once all the students left. At this point, everyone is exhausted. Most people are asleep right now as I type this. I apologize for the grammatical errors; I’m half asleep.
I miss everyone from home a ton, but we’re having such a blast. Everyone has been working so hard, and Merecat has really come together over the past few days.
Lots of love from the BVI’s,
Ava <3