Location: Sandy Spit, Green Cay
We started the day with a nice wake-up of The Backstreet Boys blasting throughout the boat. After a quick morning routine, the DMs (Georgia, Ned, and I) went on a fun little tank run and came back to eat some oatmeal and cereal with the rest of the boat. Everyone left for the day to do some water sports, paddle boarding, snorkeling, and relaxing. Lana, Stella, and Aubrey got caught in a massive rainstorm on a dinghy that was supposedly very cool. Meanwhile, on the raft, Nómada was chilling, and some bees came in for some shelter. One found its home in Avery’s arm, but she got it out, and all was good. All the way over on another boat, Harry jumped in the water for some diving and caught up completely on his dives. According to the instructors, he did an absolutely stellar job and was killing it like a fish underwater. During this, the DMs got kitted up and hopped in the water for a DSD dive. This consisted of three staff members pretending to be bad divers that have never been diving before while Georgia, Ned, and I had to make sure they didn’t kill themselves or us. They took off their kits, their masks, their fins, took out their regulators, etc. Definitely, the most stressful dive I have ever done, but really funny at the same time. We hopped out of the water and into another tank run before splashing back into the water. We demoed several skills underwater and finished all of the demos we needed to qualify as DMs. We decided to stay underwater for an additional ten minutes, and we all took off our fins and lay down on the sand, taking the time to relax while looking at all of the gorgeous reef life around us. Since we had little left to do to certify as divemasters, we got to hop on a dinghy and do water sports. We made a quick stop to pick up Stella, Aubrey, and Kate, as well as a few friends from the boat Friendship. Ned started waterskiing and failed miserably before switching to wakeboarding. He then waterboarded himself a few times before he finally was close to standing up and face-planted in the water. It was then my turn, and of course, I was just so amazing at wakeboarding and stood up on my first try until I tried to fix my bathing suit and slammed into the water. I got up the next try and had a great time going in and out of the wakes like a pro. Aubrey tried to pick me up by the lifejacket to get me back on the dinghy and hit my face on the side until, eventually, using her incredible upper body strength, and pulling me up. Then it was Georgia’s turn to wakeboard, and she only waterboarded herself once before she stood up and totally killed it. She was boarding for a hot minute until she tried to go outside the wake and fell on her face with her arms flailing. Super amusing to watch. Ned then tried again, and after a little more waterboarding, he stood up for a solid few seconds! We then went back and picked up the rest of the Nómada shippies and brought them back to the boat for lunch. We had chicken-cheese wraps, quesadillas, Nutella, and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. After lunch, we relaxed for a half hour before the DMs went on another tank run and brought back some tanks for everyone on Nómada to dive with. After which, Ned spent the next 10 minutes attempting to do a backflip of the dingy. He seems to think it was perfect, but Aubrey and I were very much enjoying watching him try. Everyone split up into their diving groups, and I went with Garrison’s group, which consisted of Kate, Stella, and Aubrey. I led the dive, taking them around the reef and seeing many different types of fish. We saw massive schools of fish (that Kate turned to say hi and wave to), a lionfish, and a massive lobster. Afterward, we took off our fins, deflated our BCDs, and spent the next several minutes jumping around, doing flips, and doing a very slow race. After this dive, the DMs were done with all of the water skills necessary to become a divemaster, the exam being the only thing left to do. More importantly, this dive officially made everyone else open water divers!!! In between rotations, I made them a congratulatory cake with Ned and Georgia and we all happily munched on the wonderful cake in celebration. All of the newly certified open water divers headed up to the power tower, where they started to sail the boat. Kate started at the helm while we raised the sail, and she held us perfectly still in the water for about a half hour while everyone worked together without staff help to raise the sail. Then Aubrey took hold, and we finally started getting underway. All was well until she started showing Lucas how to man the helm and swerved the boat back and forth, making me nauseous in the process. Ned, Georgia, and I took this time to get some studying done until we decided to take naps instead, about 20 minutes in. We (eventually) made it to the bbq. After a chaotic photo shoot on the bow, we dinghied over to the bbq island that is really just a spit of sand in the middle of the ocean. After landing on Sandy Spit (a fitting name for the pile of sand), we all got in line for some wonderful food. We met up with our friends from Friendship, and everyone ate dinner together, Lucas and Maude going off on their own to spend some quality time with friends they had made on other ships. After a nice family dinner together, we all split up and hung out with friends we had made from other boats. I personally met up with some people from the rescue boat that I had made friends with when I was here from years passed. At the end of the night, we all met back up together to talk some more (because we are always so quiet on the boat ;)). Stella brought out her camera to take a bunch of pictures of everyone, and we discussed the night’s events together. A minute later, Issy came running over very excited to show off a grain of bioluminescent sand she found. It was pretty cool, a glowing grain of sand amongst all of the others. We then hopped on a dinghy to head back to the boat, ready to get cleaned off after the wet entry and exit that got us covered in sand. We had a fun time chatting about the night before the DMs decided to go to bed relatively early, excited to do a 6 am dive over on the Playgrounds. Anyway, we get to go on shore and get our phones back tomorrow, so everyone is very excited to talk to their parents. Good night. Everyone wants to say they love you, and they can’t wait to say hi tomorrow!