Location: Muskmelon Bay, Guana Island
Today was rather eventful. We began our motoring to the chimneys at the dogs at around 9:00 after a 7:30 wake-up and being left to make and clean up breakfast, which was pancakes alone due to a staff meeting that took place at 8:00. While Max and Miers were cooking pancakes, the rest of us went about trying to get as much extra sleep as we could. After Max and Miers completed their task of preparing breakfast, we all sat down eagerly awaiting an amazing breakfast, and an amazing breakfast it was, probably the best of the trip as of yet. The cleanup was quite fast, and we met with multiple divemaster candidates who would join us for the day. Sean, James, and Miers left for the day to go sailing on different boats. Miers went to Avisia, and Sean went to Grayful. After an hour of motoring promptly got our dive gear ready on arrival. After preparing our gear, we were briefed on our first underwater naturalist training dive.
On this dive, we followed a sand highway, searching for organisms to identify with the slates given to us. We were tasked with identifying two plants, two invertebrates, and four vertebrates. Each of our groups was led by the dive master candidates with who we were spending the day but were still supervised by dive masters. The dive master Candidate with my group was named Alexis and we were supervised by Amanda. During our safety stop, Amanda and I played Rock-paper-scissors like we do every dive (I always win, though), and I beat her three more times. After we surfaced, the DMCs (Divemaster candidates) went for another dive while we swam on the surface. When they came back, we did a tank run and then set up our gear for a second dive. This dive would be more of just a recreational dive for fun, and we would swim through the same reef but end at a new destination, a swim-through that went between a giant crevice in the center of two rocks. Throughout the entire dive, it was amazing to just admire the natural beauty of the underwater environment. After the second and final dive for the day, we embarked on another hour motor to our final anchorage of the day, which is called Musk Melon, which just so happens to be Max, Matt, and Mackenzie’s favorite place of the whole trip, and it may just end up being mine as well. It’s such a tranquil and beautiful anchorage, and that’s it for today, bye!