Broadreach Fiji Shark Studies — SS11 Update: Thursday, June 26, 2014 “Babs’ Angels”

View of the Fiji shore from the dive boat on the Broadreach Shark Studies program
View of the Fiji shore from the dive boat on the Broadreach Shark Studies program

Today’s update from Fiji:

What a day we had today. Let me tell you. We woke up to the beautiful sounds of Fiji on our fifth day of the trip. We had our normal cereal and milk for breakfast with some scrumptious slices of toast. (Insert Charlie’s Angels theme song here). After breakfast, we were chillin’ and doing some extra group bonding. We learned about everyone’s lives back at home and the differences in our backgrounds. We played card games and swam in the pool after an intense group workout. The 6-person workout group began the squat challenge, starting with thirty squats and adding thirty more every day. At around 11:10am, we ate some mouth-watering cuisine delivered by Va and Manasa who, today, delivered a delicious pasta dish with a delightful tomato sauce and a superbly spicy kimchi type dish, which really complimented the pasta.

Soon after lunch we prepared for our second trip out to dive. We dove on Combe Reef, which was the first deep dive our group did. We split up into two groups; one for those who are getting their Advanced Open Water Diver (AOWD) certification and one for those already certified. While on the boat, Austin drew a chart of fifteen numbers in a non-consecutive order and each person who was training for their AOWD certification had to look at the board and, as fast as they could, point out the numbers in a consecutive order beginning at one and ending at fifteen. Once we reached the dive site, those training for their AOWD giant-stride into the water and descended carefully to the ocean floor where they once again played the board game. After the board game, they continued on a normal dive where they saw the first two sharks of the trip. Both sharks were beautiful white-tipped reef sharks. Those who were already certified jumped in shortly afterward and descended down on our own deep dive. We saw a rare trumpet fish and a giant sea cucumber that was just hanging out on the sea floor. Mitchi, the BAD divemaster leader of the certified group, poked the sea cucumber multiple times, however, the cucumber said, “No I’m not moving, get over it.” Or at least we assumed it said that.

During our surface interval, we learned some new Fijian words: kere kere, which means “please” and lako, which means, “leave.” After our cozy surface interval with the most delicious tea EVER, the entire group hopped back into the water for our first, group, deep dive. After the dive, the group arrived home and we efficiently created an order for showers and continued playing everyone’s favorite card games. Babs’ Biddies cooked tonight and deserve a round of applause for their tasty beef and veggie stir-fry. After dinner we had our second lecture taught by the outrageously intelligent Lindsay Louise Graff. We learned all about the foundation of the oceans life and general ocean properties. Wow, it was great! After the lecture, we had a brief reminder about how to log our dives and we finished the night with ice cream, made from carrageenan (a type of algae), and more just chillin’. Today was awesome and we can’t wait until tomorrow. (Insert Charlie’s Angels theme song here).