DAY 12

Today started off with another beautiful day on San Salvador. The weather has been spectacular here with no signs of rain yet. After breakfast we prepared for what would be two of the most amazing dives of the trip yet. I had a big day ahead of me as Leader of the Day and was prepared and ready to show the group my leadership skills. I briefed everyone on the challenges that awaited us and everyone was ready to get into it. We got our lunches on the truck and Chris sat in the back of the truck with us. He passed around a compass and we learned how to navigate. When we got to Riding Rock dive center, we were greeted by Hal, the divemaster intern at the dive shop. We got our gear set up and divided into groups for the first dive of the day. This dive was our first deep dive of the trip. Both groups saw sharks. Chris's group saw a reef shark and a nurse shark and Miriam's group was being inspected by a gray reef shark, who was quite curious and came extremely close to Daniel and Jake, who were swimming towards the back of the group with Lynn (one of the divemasters from Riding Rock). So awesome! As we went back up, we were all so excited that we jumped for joy exclaiming “WE SAW A SHARK!”. We were all oblivious to what we were about to see. As we all were on the boat for our surface interval, we were all excited to know what was in store. This next dive was going to be shallower, no more than 60 feet or 18 meters. We got our gear on, did out giant stride and our final OK, and it was time to start our dive. Right from the start we saw big fish, who got curious. Then we swam to the reef and saw, get this, hammerhead sharks. The most exhilarating experience ever! We also saw more gray reef sharks, never a disappointment. As we surfaced we all got excited and screamed and jumped, did dances, which for the most part looked like we were trying to not fall over when the waves made the boat rock. Later we got off the boat, onto the truck, and went to the recently renamed “Lucayan Bus Stop”. We ate our sandwiches. Jayce, Jonathan, Grace, David, Lena and Miriam discussed their favorite books-- Redwall, Ender's Game and The Lord of the Rings were the favorites. After lunch we packed up leftovers and garbage. Margaret and Maddie instigated a clean up of the brush around the bus stop, so that we left it much nicer than we found it. We got back to the GRC and had a lecture on fish. We learned a lot about fish's lateral lines, sharks, Ampullae of Lorenzini, and many other thing—all very interesting. We had a short break, then back to the lecture. Then we went to dinner, and had awesome cake. Dinner discussions were a lot of fun—we talked about our projects and learned, among other things, the meaning behind Ariel's nickname (“Jump”). Nathan was especially excited about the rice. Afterwards we took time to finish some PADI advanced diving readings, then we ended the day with free time to work on journals and marine biology readings.

Tada! :)

Caila