Today was the first day of scuba bootcamp. We spent the first part of the day in the classroom having lots of information thrown our way about ecology field research methods and advanced scuba. It is going to be a challenge to keep all of these assignments straight. Once we had gotten everything passed out and explained to us in class, we all headed out to pass out swim test. This included a 400m swim, 25m underwater swim, two minutes of treading water without hands, and a 25m tired diver tow. The wind picked up this morning so the ocean actually had some turbulence to it and I ended up drinking a lot of seawater today. At least we all suffered through it together. It was a good bonding experience. After a brief lunch break, we finally got to get underwater. Fortunately, the wind had died down at this point making the water as smooth as a mirror. I have never seen such a calm sea. For today and tomorrow, we are completing open water dive skills and helping two people get certified. One of the two, a girl named Rachael, was my dive buddy. I was really excited to finally get to breathe underwater instead of having to snorkel like was all did the first two days. I was ready to go! My buoyancy was perfect and we got to see a bunch of creatures only a short swim off shore. There are way too many things to get all the pictures together but I shall give at least a little list. Green sea turtle, spotted moray eel, four squid, stoplight parrotfish, french damselfish, lots of coral, trumpetfish, and queen parrotfish, just to name a few. We got back and did our dive log for class only to end up going to another meeting to talk about the research project schedule for the next 15 weeks. I have no clue what I am going to do and am worried about not being able to come up with something interesting and exciting to do. They are expecting a lot out of us which I can understand, but I hope that I can live up to that. At least I get to dive.
P.S. If you are curious about what I am up to, here's a link to the CIEE calendar with all of our activities:
http://www.cieebonaire.org/book.html
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The Adventure Continues
Yesterday, because I was one of the last six people to get on Bonaire, I missed out on the opportunity to go explore the island with the rest of the group. But I manage to get the opportunity to swim in the ocean about a block from where I am living. Naturally, because I have the best of luck, I got stung by something. Fortunately, the swelling and stinging pain has subsided leaving a red rash looking thing on my right wrist.
We also had our first orientation yesterday. This was the part where the instructors talk about all the dangers of living on Bonaire. I found myself throughly intimidated by the whole thing and was stressing for a while about how I was going to survive. I calmed down once I was back in my room and had a moment to sort through all of my crazy thoughts.
Last night, I had the deepest sleep I've ever had. Clearly the fourteen hours of flying took a lot out of me. At one o'clock lat night both my roommate and I woke up and weren't tired so we sat up at wandered around our room for a bit and then proceeded to crash again. During that time, some of the other people wandered back into the study center and set off two alarms. I was happy that I was already awake because that would have been an extremely unfortunate wake up call.
Looking forward to a BBQ tonight after another orientation session! Love you all!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The Day has Finally Come!
So after a very stressful and unfortunate trip today (the details of which I will fill you in on a little later in the post) I have finally made it to Bonaire to start the adventure that I have been excited about since October.
So to fill you in on my flight this morning. As you know, my first flight was supposed to be a red-eye from Phoenix to Atlanta with a three hour layover that would allow for a bit more rest. Too bad that is not what happened. First off, I try to place my carry-on in the overhead compartment, but it won't fit so I try taking something out, but while I am busy doing that, a man steals the space that I cleared for my bag in the overhead bin so I am forced to check that bag because there is no place to put my bag after that. Then about half an hour into the flight a flight attendant gets on the intercom and asks if anyone on board is a doctor. One was promptly located and was taken to the back of the plane. Everything was fine until halfway through the flight the pilot let us know that we were going to make an emergency medical stop in Oklahoma City. This would have been fine and dandy, no big deal, if the plane hadn't been measured in as overweight in the landing. This required an inspector to come and take a look at the plane. Again, this would have been fine if the inspector hadn't taken two hours to get to the airport. Take another hour to make the inspector do her job properly and the three hour layover became a sprint from terminal E to terminal A where the Bonaire flight is literally closing the doors. The only possible positive thing to come out of this experience was that another girl from my program was on this flight and it provided a bonding moment for us.
Another lucky moment was that after a woman stole my window seat on the flight from Atlanta to Bonaire, I ended up sitting next to another girl that is in the CIEE program. It was also lucky that the adrenaline from running to catch the plane knocked me out for the first hour or so of this flight.
I have started to settle in to the house where all of the members of the program are staying. Everyone seems genuinely awesome. I already knew that they had to have great taste simply for choosing to be in this program. I am rooming with one other girl named Marissa in a nice room that I will take a picture of and put on this blog soon.
To be honest, I'm really ready for this entire adventure to begin. I already know that this will be a great experience that I need to have. Now it's time for this exhausted traveller to go get some sleep and avoid getting sick before dive bootcamp these next two weeks.
So to fill you in on my flight this morning. As you know, my first flight was supposed to be a red-eye from Phoenix to Atlanta with a three hour layover that would allow for a bit more rest. Too bad that is not what happened. First off, I try to place my carry-on in the overhead compartment, but it won't fit so I try taking something out, but while I am busy doing that, a man steals the space that I cleared for my bag in the overhead bin so I am forced to check that bag because there is no place to put my bag after that. Then about half an hour into the flight a flight attendant gets on the intercom and asks if anyone on board is a doctor. One was promptly located and was taken to the back of the plane. Everything was fine until halfway through the flight the pilot let us know that we were going to make an emergency medical stop in Oklahoma City. This would have been fine and dandy, no big deal, if the plane hadn't been measured in as overweight in the landing. This required an inspector to come and take a look at the plane. Again, this would have been fine if the inspector hadn't taken two hours to get to the airport. Take another hour to make the inspector do her job properly and the three hour layover became a sprint from terminal E to terminal A where the Bonaire flight is literally closing the doors. The only possible positive thing to come out of this experience was that another girl from my program was on this flight and it provided a bonding moment for us.
Another lucky moment was that after a woman stole my window seat on the flight from Atlanta to Bonaire, I ended up sitting next to another girl that is in the CIEE program. It was also lucky that the adrenaline from running to catch the plane knocked me out for the first hour or so of this flight.
I have started to settle in to the house where all of the members of the program are staying. Everyone seems genuinely awesome. I already knew that they had to have great taste simply for choosing to be in this program. I am rooming with one other girl named Marissa in a nice room that I will take a picture of and put on this blog soon.
To be honest, I'm really ready for this entire adventure to begin. I already know that this will be a great experience that I need to have. Now it's time for this exhausted traveller to go get some sleep and avoid getting sick before dive bootcamp these next two weeks.
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