Location: Vixen Point, Gorda Sound
We woke up bright and early to Summertime Sadness blasting, and we all started getting ready for the day. After breakfast the aquarius and carina people (Peyton, Tati, Jack, Anne-Faye, and Paloma) got their scuba gear ready and took the dinghy over to the mangroves for a navigation dive where they practiced using their compasses I wasn’t there but I heard they all killed it. The divemasters in training (Alicia, Parker, Liam, Alli, Nathan, and I) had a little break in the morning and just hung out and took pics. Mackenzie and Luke went over how to give dive briefings, we then broke up into two groups – Parker, Liam, and Nathan and then Alicia, Alli, and I. We all practiced giving a briefing for staff, and in my opinion, we all did pretty well. We then had time to do a fun rotation, so we set up zests and all zested around. Liam and Parker were in a boat, and Alli and Nathan were originally solo, but Alicia and I decided that maybe it wasn’t the best idea for us to go together due to our lacking zest skills, so Alicia went with Alli, and I went with Nathan.
Nathan was really good at it, so I just got to chill out in the boat. Alli and Alicia purposely capsized, whereas Parker and Liams’ capsize wasn’t as purposeful. We then went out to water ski and wakeboard while the sailors went out paddleboarding. Parker and Alicia absolutely shredded, while I just face flopped over and over. Earlier this morning, Alicia’s razor was sitting on the counter in our head, and I may have bumped it into the head, and the razor head got stuck. Ayden did not want to take apart the entire system because it is absolutely disgusting, so Alica and I tried using this weird tool to pump it out, and the staff all had a good laugh when they saw us holding it upside down with the cap on. The tool was unsuccessful, so Ayden gloved up and stuck this metal thing in it and managed to get it out, which made everyone very happy – don’t worry, we got many pics. We got into the next rotation – for DMS, a dive, and for the sailors, paddleboarding. Before our dive, we helped other advanced students kit up and then hopped in to work on demonstrating skills. Unfortunately, the visibility was absolutely terrible; you could barely see the person next to you, so we ascended. Instead of doing that dive, we did rescue seven, which is saving an unresponsive diver on the surface. We all ran through it a few times because we were kind of rusty, but everyone managed to execute it well. The paddle boarders went over to the beach and hung out before coming back to our boat to work on knots. They tied bowlines around themselves, and then Ayden and Ruby would lean them over the water to test if it was a real bowline – if it weren’t, they would fall in, but Ayden and Ruby just dropped everyone in, even if they did it right. We all showered and cleaned up dive gear from the rotation day. Mike came over to our boat for dinner, which was garden burgers. The sun is starting to set now during cleanup, and fingers crossed, it’s as pretty as yesterday. Another great day, and we get our phones tomorrow, so talk to you all soon!