Location: Great Harbor, Peter Island
Hey everyone, this is Matthew writing the blog. Today, we had a late start because we had to detach from the mega raft with the other boats only to realize we got pranked (Hardly). We all woke up with fruit at our feet and heads, which we thought was a pretty lame job; we still haven’t found out which boat did it, but when we do, we will do a better job than a few pieces of fruit. After that, we enjoyed breakfast burritos made by Brie and Charly, which fueled us for our second underwater naturalist specialty dive. Before this dive, Gordon and Meg gave us the rundown of what we should be keeping track of during our dive. For example, we needed to find a few instances of mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. During the dive, my buddy Cahan and I saw a few barracuda and a ton of colorful coral. After the dive, we disassembled our gear and began to motor over to our next dive site. The sail to the spot was roughly an hour, and we were all pretty tired from the late night and early dives, so Lily, Hanna, Brie, and Aria helped out Jake and took naps. Once we got to the dive site, our chefs, Brie and Charly, had a huge plate of grilled cheese ready for all of us.
After that, we got our kits ready for the dive and had a brief from G-money and Megatron (Gordon and Meg) about our shipwreck dive at Willy T’s. Our boat was divided into two groups, half of us with Meg And the other with Gordon. As we splashed down, we began our navigation to the wreck, with Henry navigating for Gordon’s group and Kellen for Meg’s group. As we got there, Gordon signaled that we should draw out a map of Willy T’s with its depth and penetration points included. When we finally made it to the deck of Willy T’s, we noticed there were a bunch of skeleton statues playing cards and sitting at a bar. Of course, this was an excellent photo opp, so Riley and Allana took photos at the empty seat of the card table with the skeletons. Gordon and Meg never really made it clear if they were real or not, so I’m just gonna assume they were as we finished up. Henry and Lily on the way up were messing around stealing each other masks and fins.. After that, we debited and threw on our life jackets to prepare for our sail back to GHP. As we began to sail, we all lay down on the hard top and listened to music with skipper Jake. Henry and Avery helped Jake set the sail while Kellen and I raised it from the mast. Jake was super happy by the end of the sail because his boat being on the dive side meant he didn’t get to share his passion for sailing very often.
When we finally made it back to GHP, we got ready to take an ocean shower. Aria Cahan and I decided to hack backflips off the safety line, which was hella tough. After showering and backflips, Brie, Charly, and Meg began to start the Thanksgiving dinner. Tonight was a super special dinner because we were having Jake Steward, who is the co-leader of AQ. When Jake came to our boat, and dinner was ready, we were met with his super spicy Calypso hot sauce, which was his way of saying thanks for dinner. Henry and I got a little bit too bold and took down a spoonful of each, and we would so regret it. After dinner finished, we watched a movie in the saloon and went to bed. It was a great day, and we won’t forget it.