Location: Muskmelon Bay, Guana Island
Today was the 12th day of our boat adventure, and it started with the usual early morning wake-up, an enthusiastic, smiley “good morning” from Alli, and a sleepy groan from Dylan, Caleb, and Jack. With the morning sun shining bright, stomachs full of cereal, and PFDs on, we left Marina Cay and headed for Mountain Point for lunchtime. Kyler, Jack, Moorea, Alexis, Tyler M, and I sat around the table and discussed our exciting upcoming Dolphin projects that we will be collecting data for in the next coming days. After, Dylan, Brian, and Caleb were boated off to a neighboring boat to complete their second wreck dive while the dolphins went down for yet another seamless underwater naturalist dive, where we took down slates to record any human impacts we saw on the reefs and the relationships between sea life for later discussion. We sat down for a big bowl of noodles cooked by our chefs of the day: Dylan and Alli. A big group nap in the sun was in order while our trusty skipper Joe took the sails out for a peaceful sail. We arrived in Muskmelon, where Tyler H and I hooked a secure mooring line, and I finally feel like all of our knot-tying abilities are finally starting to solidify. As a group, we took our fins and snorkels out to have a look at our night dive sight. We got the boat shipshape for a special guest visitor Mike Meighan, the head of Action Quest, better known as the ‘Supreme leader’. We had yet another delicious boat-cooked meal of chili, and I am proud to say that we are almost out of our Franks Red Hot Hot sauce. With lots of the usual uncontrollable laughter caused by jokes cracked by Zack, Caleb, and Tyler H, I started to realize that we were more than halfway done with our boat adventure and how happy I was to be living with these awesome people. Zack, Jack, Tyler H. Alexis, and Brain sat down to wash our grubby dishes, looking out at yet another stunning BVI pink sunset. We set up our dive kits and hopped in the water for our 3rd-night dive, where we saw a unicorn filefish, bridled burrfish, quite a few moray eels, and an octopus. Of course, we had to have a shower dance party with our boat playlist, and Anna cooked us a tray of fresh yummy brownies. Alli, Tyler H., and Zack are now testing the oxygen-dissolving levels of seaweed with Joe with the onboard lab kit for their research project, and we all will soon be setting up for bed, excited for day 13.