Day 168! Diving is tiring, but it’s been totally worth it so far. The comradery from the DMT squad is amazing and the instructors are fun as well. So far everything is great!

I’ve been diving… a lot!

But this morning I was only doing a morning boat, which I was excited to do, but I’ve been very exhausted lately.

Going from hostel work for a month to Dive Master was a pretty big transition!

I woke up at 6am to get ready for my morning.

All of the divers met up at Taco Shack and then we headed to the pier. We of course stopped by our favorite morning fried chicken lady before boarding the boat.

Our first dive of the morning was at Southwest Pinnacle! This has become a staple in my morning dives and has given me ample opportunities to have fantastic dives there.

Today’s dive was pretty insane! Kit and I were led by our friend Lydia, a fellow Dive Master in Training. We saw a ginormous blue spotted stingray, a very cute puffer fish, and then we saw a massive school of trevally hunting the school of 1,000+ fusilier. The fusiliers were darting in the hundreds in multiple directions, causing a shimmering of silver as they moved. It was wild! We also saw a medium barracuda.

This was a 33 minute dive at a max depth of 18m. I’m starting to really enjoy this pinnacle.

Our second dive was at a site called “No Name.” This site is also near a shipwreck I’ve been to… but this dive took a turn as we tried to navigate ourselves towards the shipwreck, but we never found it.

Instead, we swam around a really big rock that had a very cute sea anemone on top… and also swam into the abyss of the ocean.

It was a strange feeling, but we were all in it together so we all remained very calm. It honestly was quite a silly situation and there were a lot of nervous giggles. But eventually we called it quits and turned back the way we came and found the boat.

It was definitely a change of pace from the first dive. But there were a lot of very very small fish at the ocean floor. They each had their own hole or object to hide behind when we got to close. It was very cute.

I was absolutely cream crackered after these dives (English cockney rhyme for nackered a.k.a.: tired). But hunger came first and I had a pad see ew at the hostel before crashing into my bed.

I slept for around 3 hours and felt like a groggy, but new, person!

I hadn’t seen my friend Immy in a bit, so we planned on meeting up and finding somewhere to grab a smoothie/coffee/something to eat.

We ended up choosing the French market, which I hadn’t been to yet, but had heard good things.

Immy and I split a cinnamon roll and a crookie! A crookie is a croissant and cookie combined! They warmed them both up and they were heavenly. The crookie was dense but had a gooey chocolate inside.

Immy and I had a really nice catch up, but it was time for me to hustle back to the hostel. There was a night dive, which I wanted to do but my body didn’t want to, so I listened to it. Instead of diving though, my instructor friend, Guada suggested we hang out and watch the sunset from the boat.

Outside of some storm clouds rolling around us, it was a really nice way to finish off the day!

Guada and I chatted about life and diving. The dive lasted a while, so we had plenty of time.

The boat boy, Nine, and Cappy came and joined us as well and they serenaded us for a bit… so it was nice to find out what they do when we dive.

Before going to bed, I had a fried vegetables with chicken and rice.

And then I FaceTimed my parents:

And then it was time for bed! I was still super exhausted and I was hoping a full nights sleep would revive me.

Diving has been amazing so far! I can see the improvement happening from repetition to repetition. I also hit my 30th dive! That’s pretty cool how many times I’ve dove in just a week or two. I’ll be at 40 dives very soon!

– Elie