Sierra 3 & Foxtrot 3 Day 4: Water-sporting and turtle tagging!
written by mate of Spyglass, Grace McKenna, Brought to you by the crew of Spyglass
August 8, 2015
Cooper Island Beach Club to Salt Island
Everyone got up early this morning and had a lovely breakfast of eggs and bagels made by Will and Tyler. Then our students working on their Open Water Diver certification, Tyler and Will, headed to shore to do some more confined water dives. The rest of our students headed to shore a little later for a beach morning!
Our four Sierra students, Addie, Abbey, Meredith, and Andrew, started their beach morning off by snorkeling Cistern rock, a nearby reef. For their research project, they decided to analyze percent coral cover on different reefs in the BVI to assess human impacts, so they started collecting data on this snorkel. After the snorkel, we regrouped with the rest of the students on shore. The morning consisted of relaxing, snacking, water-sporting, and turtle tagging! Henry and Sara also grabbed some ice-cream while Meredith, Addie, and Abbey took out Opal Bella, our smaller training keelboat, for a sail. When they returned, we all went turtle tagging and caught one! Meredith and several other Soxtrot students took measurements while Addie wrote down all the measurements and tag numbers.
Once our two open water divers got back, we all headed back to Spyglass for lunch. Lunch of the day was refreshing Greek pita pockets. We all hung out on the boat and swam around for a little, and then headed back to shore. Our DSD student, Henry, did his first Discover Scuba Diving session in the afternoon while our fun divers, Meredith and Andrew, got to dive on Wreck Alley and the Rhone! While the divers were gone, Will, Addie, and Abbey went wake boarding. Henry went tubing with a few other Soxtrot students, and Sara and Tyler snorkeled around the sea grass bed and did a little more turtling, although we didn’t catch one in the afternoon. Then, it was back to boats for all students and we dropped the mooring ball, with our skipper of the day, Abbey, at the helm.
While motoring to Salt Island, we did an anchoring lesson. Then we successfully dropped anchor, thanks to our awesome skipper Abbey! Once on anchor, we headed to shore for a barbecue and social with the other boats. Everyone chowed down on burgers and hot dogs, and then went for a sunset hike around the top of Salt Island where we captured a few awesome photos! It was a really fun evening, and then we headed back to boats to do boat meeting and power down. A great day overall for all Spyglass students!
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