Tuesday, August 11

Tektite!

Got up with just enough time to enjoy breakfast and brew coffee before heading to the dive shop. Dove right into working and getting things in order before folks started arriving to go diving. Kevin joined the awesomeness and hopped on the boat as well.

Trip around the SOUTHERN shore, which to me, is kind of a big deal, since the water is usually quite rough on the southern side. We dove Tektite, North and South. Amazing. Skimming the sand at 50 feet and seeing the site where Aquanauts performed their experiments is a neat adventure. I saw some interesting file fish, cool parrot fish I hadn't seen before of new color combinations, a massive conch that was probably more than a foot long, west indian sea egg (always fun to play with, since it sticks to your hands), and general fun and coolness that comes with blowing bubbles along the bottom and watching the fish comb the reef. We rode back into the beach and before long, I was holding my first paycheck from Low Key Watersports! How cool! Yay!

Surly Cantina was open. Two spicy chicken tacos, soft. Kevin ordered a dos equis and the taco salad. For $10, his meal was HUGE. My tacos were spicy and more than delicious. Seriously, if you are in St. John, you have to stop at Surly Cantina, it's not a negotiable stop in your travels. There and Woody's are two places you've got to get a bite to eat.

Post-dive and post-lunch, we took a long walk back up the hill to the office. It didn't take me too long to realize it was far too late in the day to start working. I threw plans of getting work done for today and we headed off to Salomon beach to do some snorkeling and find some sea glass. Treachery bounds when large boats go past shallow waters. A rogue five foot wave slammed me into some nasty corals and coarse sand. I got away with a pretty decent gnarled right middle finger knuckle and a right knee scrape. Ouch. Honestly, I'm more worried about the coral than my knee. I know to stay a more than significant distance from the reefs, so coming into contact with the precious living animals made me quite upset. Not only did I get a bit of an abrasian, Kevin scraped a knuckle, too. I got the heck out of dodge right away, and lingered in the water just long enough to let the saltwater work its magic. Kevin scooped up a small handful of sea glass. With my knee oozing with bright red blood, we headed back to the house to scrub my wounds with soap and rub in the polysporin. With my cuts mostly treated, we spent some time getting the gear in order (which had dried by now, after leaving it in the sun to dry). I spent almost two hours getting images processed and organized from the last week or so, including my risk assessment photographs. I took quite a few pictures!

Dinner. I had leftovers from Morgan's Mango, which were tasty. Kevin made some of the Pad Thai that I had in the fridge from my fantastic care package (thanks again, Becca!). The leftovers of Pad Thai mean I've got at least one lunch ready for me to consume at a moment's notice.

Around dinnertime, I noticed I've got a voicemail from the dive shop. I confirmed over the phone, I'm diving tomorrow at 8:00AM on the Low Key. Woohoo! I'm stoked. Two days of diving in a row! This is great! Between tips and regular hourly earnings, I will be much better prepared to buy the next batch of groceries and pay my bills :)

Kevin leaves tomorrow, which is less great, but vacations usually do come to an end. The past week really has gone by fast. Looking at the time since I arrived on the island, that time has also gone by very quickly. I'd like to see myself never boarding a plane to leave here. Kevin will board the 1:00pm ferry most likely, and then deal with the taxi and ferry combination in Red Hook or Charlotte Amalie before taking off for the states.