*Tip: When it rains, it pours on the island and you had better make sure you leave nothing on the washing line when it does as it may well not be there in the morning!
Thursday started as the previous two days had done, a pre-dive snack at 6.30 followed by a briefing and the first dive of the day, breakfast just after 9, a second dive at 11.30 with the final one after lunch. It was a productive morning with more lionfish spearfishing. Willie the resident Marine Biologist and diving instructor prepared them and left the tails out to dry. He explained that he would be taking them back to the mainland where there were women who made jewelery out of lionfish tails which brought in extra income to support their families, as well as helping to raise awareness of the invading lionfish population.
As it would be our last night together as a group, after dinner we all stayed in the common area playing card games and chatting about highlights of the week’s dives. It started raining and quickly turned from a light drizzle to a full on thunderstorm. It rained for hours and the wind got so hard it even snapped two of the three ropes mooring the boat! Staff and volunteers joined forces to save the boat and moor it securely. In the middle of the night I went downstairs for water, only to find a small waterfall cascading down the stairs as some of the guttering above had collapsed!
The next morning we awoke to a mess; palm leaves were strewn across the island, one of my fins had ended up 12 feet from where I’d left it and Victoria’s trousers which she’d left hung up and drying were now drenched and tangled on the clothesline below! Poor Luis the maintenance man would have plenty of work to do over the weekend!
After a final dive and breakfast all together, we packed up the boat and headed back to the mainland for the weekend.
By Frances Singer
Frances & Victoria are volunteering through an organisation called POD Volunteer
