Splash

BC, check.
Weights, check.
Releases, check.
Air, check.
Final check, good.
Right hand over my regulator and mask. Left hand on the mask strap on the back of my head. Lean backwards, legs straight, and I'm in the water, with a cloud of bubbles surrounding me as I complete my backflip below the surface.

The backwards splash entry off the boat that you see scuba divers do in movies is actually a lot of fun. We went out diving again yesterday, and ended up having to switch our dive site because one of the boats couldn't handle the waves. The sea was a little choppy still from the recent storms. We ended up diving at a place called Spanish Chain. The visibility was "bad" by caribbean standards, but still good enough for us to find a couple enormous southern stingrays (Dasyatus americanis, since I am memorizing). I swam over one of them and was just thinking "yeah, thats bigger than me." They were somewhere in the eight foot wingspan range, with barbs on their tails the size of my arm. This dive was still a very low key dive, getting everyone comfortable with diving here before we start actually doing research dives. I'm getting very comfortable underwater now, its awesome once you get your buoyancy control down. I can just hover in one place, and control moving up and down in the water column just by how much I fill my lungs with air.

After I cleaned my gear and put it away, I grabbed a van ride over to the local primary school. Me and a couple other students helped out in a reading class there, helping the teacher with her materials and giving the students one-on-one attention. I hung out with this little guy Justin, who spoke English as a second language. My limited Spanish actually came in useful, as I taught him how to spell and sound out words. We are going to paint the wall of the classroom to make a reading corner for the kids. They really need more books actually, its sad how bare their bookcase is. On the way back, I stopped at Saul's house, he is this local fisherman whose dog just had six puppies. They are really adorable, and plenty of the students here are thinking of taking one back home, pretty much due to the way dogs are treated here.

Probably one of the biggest cultural differences here is the way dogs are treated here. There are a lot of wild dogs for one thing, and they basically just eat trash and chicken bones, and people yell at them and throw rocks at them. It's pretty sad, if you reach down as if you are going for a rock the dogs here will run away from you. When we first got here, the people at the center told us basically not to interact with local dogs, since if we show them affection or feed them, not only will they follow us everywhere but it will be a cause of resentment against us from the locals. What they said makes sense in theory, but it is really hard to be cold and clinical about it when you actually see these dogs on the streets.

Anyways, I just got out of the water from snorkeling at Admiral's Aquarium, there were comb jellyfish all over the place, and a very cute little sea turtle who was probably snacking on them before he got startled by a few of us curious snorkelers. We also happened to see a lot of young yellowtail damselfish, which may be my favorite fish. Here is picture of one which I did not take:

Any pictures I have seen do not do it justice, the blue dots it has defy description. Adjectives such as electric, stunning, unreal come to mind, but its hard to put words to something that is naturally so visually appealing. I saw one gorgeous one that ducked under a rock today, and I dove down inverted, fins towards the surface, hair brushing up against the sand, so I could look under the ledge. I just wanted to stay there longer, watching it but my lungs started screaming for air and with that, I had to surface.