Location: Little Harbor, Jost van Dyke
In the morning, we started our day off by making our way to Green Key to get into our first dive. On the way there, Aloha indulged in a simple but efficient breakfast of bagels and strawberry yogurt, which for most of us wasn’t very filling but, for me, was just enough. After breakfast sitting on the hardtop, observing the surrounding islands, and getting lost in my thoughts was what kept me busy until we reached our destination. Once we arrived, we immediately went straight into getting kitted up and getting into the briefing. All of the dives today were fun dives, but the twist is that we had no instructor. It was just us and the ocean. For the first dive, we decided we would go in a big group. This group would consist of Me, Simon, Nolan, Sadie, Byron, and Lily. We kit up, hop on to Rango and arrive at Good Times, which is on the other side of Green Key. We all back-roll off the side of the dinghy and make our way to the bow, where we all go over our dive plan again and descend together. Once we all reach the bottom, we slowly move southeast nothing really occurs until we come across a pufferfish which Lily points out to the group, and then we move on. Right before we all decide to turn back to the boat, we find a barracuda which is abnormally longer than normal then we all turn back and have a smooth swim back to the mooring line. Our group finishes our safety stop, and we all ascend. At the surface, we discuss the dive briefly and what we saw, then swim to the Good Times ladder. Once we all get on to Good Times, make our way up the ladder, then dinghy back to Aloha to prepare for lunch and swim time. Cici has already started to cook lunch, which is Mac n Cheese, today.
The whole group loves the food, and then we immediately hop into swimming on the back of the boat and doing backflips off the dingy. After many attempts, I finally land a backflip but I am so tired that I exit the water and lay down on the cushions outside. When I get up again, people are starting to exit the water and get ready for our next dive, which is a fun dive for all of us except Eugina and Anthony, where it is their Navigation dive. Before the dive, I’m feeling like I just wanna snorkel instead, but I realize there are only four more days. For this dive, Eugina, Lily, I, and Daniella are all in a group. We get to the stern of the boat with our gear on, and I am the first one to hop in, and the rest follow. Lily drops her weight belt to the bottom, which is not that far down, so she quickly descends away from the group to retrieve it. We then see her swimming to the bow of the boat beneath us, so we all descend, but by the time we reach the bottom, she is nowhere in sight.
We swim around for a good few minutes with the vision in the water not being the best, and we still don’t find her. The correct decision should have been to all ascend, but we make a mistake and continued the dive for about 15 minutes, then ascend. Lily had surfaced and was sunbathing on the roof with the staff. When we get back to the boat, we all apologize to Lily, and all agree that we should have handled the dive differently. After a few more hours of swimming, eating snacks, and making bracelets, we all start to get ready for the BBQ by putting on some nicer clothes and drying off. We finally are all ready and are sitting in the salon for what feels like about 15 minutes when Katie radios for a dingy to come to pick us up. When we arrive, we are the third boat there, and people have just started to mingle and get their food which is surprisingly not terrible. The burgers and pasta were decent, but the Sprite mixed with pineapple juice tasted kinda weird it was the only drink, so that it would do. A friend from another boat and I walk and sit down for a while, talking about things and eating; then, when we finish our food, we decide to do a few laps around the island and talk to people until people start heading towards the dinghies. Everyone starts to head back to their boat for shower time. The night finally wraps up with everyone getting back to their boat and showering.