Location: Great Harbor, Peter Island
The group woke up this morning at 6:45 am and hopped straight into cold bagels and yogurt underway on the sail to Salt Island. We arrived on the backside of Salt Island above the wreck of the RMS Rhone, and everyone suited up for the fun dive ahead! There was a pretty significant current during the dive, and we started off swimming straight into it. This was not super fun, but it meant that we got to drift with the current carrying us all the way back to the boat. On the dive, we got to see tons of corral and aquatic life, and we even saw a big turtle. Everyone came up with a pretty low amount of air since the dive was tiring, and we all had to wait in line to do our safety stop. Once back on the boat, everyone got out of their dive gear, and some Seamester students got on board our boat. We gave them a little 10-minute shuttle back to their boat, and then we all slathered on some more sunscreen and set off in the dingy to Salt Island. We did a wet entry, and once on shore, we waited for the rest of the dive site to start our hike up to the top of Salt Island. It was great to see the other boats on the dive side. When we got done with the hike, everyone was extremely hot, so Andrew, Alicia, Mireille, Lucas, Dylan, Tyler, Alexis (from Soul Rebel), and I all ran into the ocean. It felt soooo nice after the hot trek. Jake from Good Times gave us a ride back to our boat, and Matt kindly had Tuscan white bean soup ready when we got back. Matt was proudly admiring the fruit hammock that he and Griffin had crafted yesterday, and it prompted everyone to have a couple of apples. I had three, and Andrew had 4.
After way too many apples, we set off and motored back to Great Harbor Peter to do our second dive of the day. Alicia requested some pre-dive pump-up music from her “RAGE” playlist. While underwater, Griffin and Matt led the group through some unresponsive diver scenarios and then a U-search pattern to try and find Matt. Ryan and Rhiannon were going through the unresponsive diver scenario, and Rhiannon got distracted by a stingray leaving Ryan lying face down in the sand. After everyone completed all of the underwater skills, we surfaced and started with shower time! While everyone else showered, Simon and Shay cooked risotto with chicken Caesar salad, and it was amazing. After dinner, camp squeeze, which might have been the funniest one yet. I asked the question, “What is your go-to gas station snack?” And we got some wild responses. Somehow the boat camera got broken out afterward, and Matt had a lot of fun looking through some of the pictures. Everyone was laughing so hard, remembering all of the funny memories and awesome pictures from this trip so far. Matt silently started chefing up brookies to eat after our dive videos that everyone is super duper excited about. Scott then helped Niko, Ryan, Trey, and Rhiannon with their hammocks in preparation for much-needed sleep. Currently, as I’m writing this, Matt is yelling at me to finish, and everyone is talking about egging Good Times. “Gentleman’s rules” apply, though.