Location: Great Harbor, Peter Island
Happy Tuesday, everybody! Here on Vela Vita, days of the week seem to have slipped our minds… instead, we keep track of our days since arrival. So, you can imagine how baffled the VV crew was when we woke up to wonderful day 9 of our BVI adventure! Our oatmeal breakfast today was served in an array of dishes spanning from cups to ladles; this was a consequence of last night’s snack party with our sister boat, Second Wind. After our somewhat avant-garde breakfast, we sailed to the Famous RMS Rhone dive, a ship sunk by a hurricane in 1867. Our advanced divers (Antonia, Ari, Maren, Josie, and Mahe) dove deep into the wreck while our open water divers ( Ellie, Sonja, Juno, Julia, Emi, and Tyler) explored the ship’s propeller and lucky porthole. Within the ship, we were able to go into a swim through, where we saw a variety of life. Not only was the Rhone dive an exciting and surreal experience, but it was also a transformative one. Our shippie, Sonja, faced her fear of shipwrecks and emerged victorious. So proud!
After exploring the aquatic world, we ascended and dinghied to Salt Island, where we hiked up to its highest peak. At the top, we got a panoramic view of the island’s salt flats. Then we had a quick and easy Mac n cheese lunch to fuel us for our afternoon naps and fish ID homework. As we drew and dreamt, the sun reached its peak and practically forced us to go for a cool swim! As I’m sure you now know, our crew has had bad luck with the jellyfish… thankfully, today the tables turned! Ari and Antonio bravely caught and released moon jellyfish; so it’s safe to say the jellyfish are afraid of us now.
Between lunch and dinner, we returned to the GHP wall anchorage for Mexican night, which was expertly cooked by Juno and Maren! As the sun set, we scrabbled to finish dishy pit and set up our dive kits for our second night dive of the trip. Diving into the water always has a special, eerie feeling to it, a sensation that makes night diving all the more exciting. On the dive, we spotted: a Snake Eel, sea spiders, and bioluminescence.
Now, we hit the hay… or should I say the bay?!? Sorry, it was just too easy. All in al,l today was a spectacular day for the VV crew. And we can’t wait for the days to come.
Signing off,
Kylie 🦩