Tango 3 Day 9: Astonishing Bioluminescence At Mountain Point

written by Tango Rotating mate, Marina Chissus
August 1, 2017

Today was a pretty relaxing day. First, this morning we had a marine biology lesson delivered by an Alpha program mate, Zosha. We all met her on Prickly Pear Island, and she talked to us about mangroves and their importance to the environment. After, we got to walk along the sandy shore and look for sea shells and big conch shells. She showed us a live conch too! 

When it was time to go back to Miss You, we shuttled back and started our pre-departure checklist. LJ’s (life jackets) were zipped up, hatches were closed, and we dropped the ball on time. On this short sail, we got to sail with some of the students from the Alpha program for the morning. Our skipper took us out of the bay and out into the open water. Today, we only raised our jib because our voyage was rather short. We even played UNO underway. As we arrived to our destination of Mountain Point, we found a perfect spot to anchor for the evening. Richard, our captain, said that the anchor was the best set anchor he has ever seen in his life. Together, we did an amazing job!

Our staff mate Allie made us lunch today and everyone stuffed their faces. Soon, the dive boat arrived and we shuttled the divers to their vessel for the afternoon. Our dive site for the day was the Kodiak Queen, a site rich with history! There were lots of arrow crabs and juvenile fish. The dive was amazing, and everyone had huge smiles at the end.

Meanwhile, the non-divers were snorkeling the same site and then hanging out with the Alpha program students. They jumped off the boats and just had some fun time at one of our staff’s favorite locations to anchor at.

The divers returned back to their boats and started to make up a splash show competition. We competed against the Alpha fleet and our show consisted of dancing and jumping off the boat to the Thriller by Michael Jackson! It was so much fun! 

It was getting close to dinner time so we started on dinner prep and enjoyed our meal under the stars. After dinner, we had a bioluminescence lesson and then observed the unbelievably astonishing lit up creatures in the water off of our stern. Eventually, we found our eyes becoming tired and settled down for a boat meeting. Soon after, we made our way to our beds to rest our heads for another evening onboard.

Photos to accompany will be posted shortly!