Weekly Reflection #3 This week was another adventure again because it was our first full week of living and weeding on the farm. Spending the entire week on Tortola was really cool because we really got to explore the island. We have had an amazing time in our bungalow and have discovered tons of new diving sites. This week, we really accomplished our goal in mastering scuba diving. This goal was especially realized on Friday when we dove with two newly certified divers and one diver who had not gone again for 30 years. Compared to them, who were really struggling with the simplest pieces of diving, such as descending, I felt that we had come a long way. I have noticed myself improve as a diver in my spatial awareness and how long I can get my tank to last—where at the beginning of the trip, I would return with 900 psi, I now return with around 1300 psi because I have learned to control my breathing more. Meanwhile, on the farm, I have learned a that organic farming is a lot of work
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5:57 We got to sleep in today until 6:15 because it was a Saturday and we didn't need to do farm work. Saturday is market day, so we headed up to the top of the farm to pack all of the produce into the truck for Aragorn so he could go to market. We returned to our bungalow and ate some breakfast and hung out for a little before hiking back up to the top of the farm to drive to the market. We had to deliver some more produce to Aragorn there to sell. We hung out there for a while and met other farmers on the island. We met another really nice farmer named Sam who had worked for Aragorn since she was 17 but since has started her own farm on the island. We ate lunch at a cool coffee house/gallery with locally grown food. After the market, we had to go get to the dive boat. Today we went to Dry Rock. Bruce joined us again, along with two new divers, but they were diving with another guide. Frances saw a baby trunkfish!! But sadly, I didn’t even get to see it!!! :(((. I also read a
Here is a video of our cat, Good, bringing us a live present one day while we were hanging out in the bungalow. Please excuse our profanity, there is a swear dropped, but what else are you supposed to say when a cat brings you a live lizard (we aren't cat owners, we have no experience with this). Our cat was pretty sad after this that we didn't appreciate his hard work.
7:56 Last night I dreamt that I was taking the ACTs. I was in the AP lang/lit classroom but the far side was a massive dirt wall, because, our first three sections of the exam were weeding!!! Then, of course there was the reading section, haha, can't forget that. Well, I woke up and went into weeding immediately at 5:45. But Harry helped us a long today. Got to love Harry Potter, and books on tape. After only an hour of weeding, we helped Drake pick a bunch of basil and mint to sell at the market tomorrow. Then, we returned to our weeding. There is a small patch of rice growing, and while weeding it, it gave me small rashes on my legs and forearms. Then, we pulled from the dirt, cleaned and stacked 50 cinder blocks that the farm was giving someone. I got bit by a lot more fire ants. I really don't like being bit by ants. After we had finished our last day of farming, we returned to our bungalow, ate lunch, had cold showers, and quick naps and then headed out for some more
7:33 Again, we started the morning at 5:30, were finally able to make some eggs on our new burner, and were up pulling our weeds by 5:50. The first hour and a half passed very quickly with the sun behind clouds and the morning still cool. But, as the day reached out before us, the heat soon arrived. So, this morning we decided we should listen to a book on tape while we weeded. So during our 9 o’clock water break, we downloaded the fifth Harry Potter book. Jim Dale is the best narrator ever. Listening to Harry Potter made the morning go by much faster, because again this morning, our only job was weeding. Hopefully tomorrow, we will get to do some picking and preparing produce for the market on Saturday rather than weeding for 5 hours straight. In the afternoon, we discovered a new and rather quiet beach called Josiah’s with great waves, and we are making some chicken fajitas for dinner. Here are some photos of the bungalow that we have been living in. It is really gorgeous.
7:03 pm The first thing I do when I get up is to check the sky to see if we have clouds or sun. This morning, there were no clouds in the sky, so Frank and I knew we were in for a very sunny and hot day. We started out the morning with some weeding at 5:45. Sitting on our weed buckets is definitely the way to go. The morning hours are not too hot yet so it was fine weeding. At 7:34, we decided to go pick the newly dried beans. We thought there weren't going to many more to pick because we had last picked them on Friday, but already there were so many dried beans that it took us an hour and twenty minutes today. So fun!! Unfortunately, I stepped on two different ant hills, the ants ran up my sneakers and bit my ankles, then bit my hands when I tried to get them off my ankles. I hate red ants. Having picked all the white beans, we unfortunately had to return to weeding. We began a new bed today, which didn't have too many weeds, but did have a lot of ant hills, which I stepped o
7:25 pm We started the day again at 5:30 and farming started at 6. Today it was again cloudy in the morning so the weeding wasn't that bad. We also decided to sit on our weed buckets this morning while we weeded and found another bucket to put our weeds in. But today, we got a new task. We started picking the green onions, cleaning them all in a tub, and pulling off their roots and dirty pieces of skin so that they are prepared for the market. This was nice task because we got to sit on our root buckets and hide from the sun because the tub was in the shade. It was also very satisfying to pull off the dirty skin, so it was a nice morning. In the afternoon, we visited a local beach and swam and I read. I have been reading A Little Life , which is a really good book, but every page seems to wrench my heart out even more because it is incredibly sad. I can't put it down. More weeding and onion cleaning awaits tomorrow. Hours today: 5 Hours total: 83
8:08 pm Our morning started even earlier today because there was heat to beat. We started work at 5:45 so that we could be done by 10:45 before the heat really struck in. However, we didn't have to worry too much today because it was cloudy all morning. Today we weeded for five straight hours. But to be honest, we have gotten much better at weeding. The time doesn't go as slowly anymore and the work isn't as terrible. You just have to accept the fate of the morning. We did momentarily lose our minds this morning though, climbed into a swamp, and jumped up and down on metal planks until we were ready to return to weeding. Halfway through the morning, Drake brought us a snack of delicious mangos!! They were soo juicy and sweet, the best I have ever tasted. Finally, 10:45 rolled around and we raced down to our bungalow to take cold showers and eat some cereal. I was also able to fit in an amazing nap post shower before we had to head out for diving. We dove this afternoon f
Weekly Reflection #2 May 11th, 2019 This week took a totally different turn than our first week as we entered the second part of our project. After completing some more dives and moving further along in our goal of mastering scuba diving, we delved into our goal of understanding agriculture and environmental exploration of the islands. We started farming and after the first morning had already learned plenty about agriculture on the island. A mission of Good Moon Farm is to educate people on the effects of organic produce and to provide people with this as much as they can. They do not use any pesticides or any other product that is not completely natural on any of their produce. The farm is not big, but they are able to produce plenty of fruits and vegetables regardless. What they cannot provide, is imported in from nearby islands, such as Dominica, where there are larger and more plentiful farms. It was really interesting learning all of this from Drake. We had no ide
10:26 pm This morning we woke up at 5:30 so that we could be working by 6 am to finish our five hours before the heat hit us too hard. We climbed down from the loft to discover that our cat friend (who is named Good) had left us another present right in the center of our floor. Today, we received what looked like a fetus, but we decided was once a shrew because we all around it was fur and two big front teeth. Luckily, the fire ants hadn't found it yet, so we shoveled it outside and cleaned up the floor. Our burners are still not working so we ate cereal for breakfast. Then, we hiked up the switch backs to start farm work. By the time we reached the main tiers of the farm, we had already hiked 40 cases of stairs (according to Frank's watch). We found Drake and he told us to get right back to our weeding. Yay. So, we weeded a bed and another bed for 2 hours and 45 minutes and it was soo hot, even though the sun was no where near its peak. The two beds had a few carrots and o
May 9th 2019, Posted May 10th 9:51 pm because we did not have wifi before Today I woke up suddenly from a downpour of rain on the tin roof of our bungalow. I climbed out of my mosquito-netted bed and got dressed. This morning I had to eat cereal because our burner would not turn on so we could not cook our 4 surviving eggs from last nights crisis. By 7 we were up at the main house to begin our work. First, we filled orders that the farm had received. The orders go to restaurants, other farmers, and locals on the island as well as charity for people who need food. We filled them with an assortment of produce including pineapple, passion fruit, mango, papaya, pumpkin, arugula, mustard, chives, dill, mint, spinach, lettuce, cucumber, lime, basil, Thai basil, and the list continues. After we had filled 3 orders and cut a bunch more harvest that we needed, we began to pick white beans. Luckily, it was raining all morning so it wasn’t too hot while we picked. It was pretty peaceful actu
May 8th 2019, posted may 10th at 9:51 pm because we did not have wifi before Today we woke up and got to relax this morning. I saw my dad off to the airport and spent the rest of the morning with Frank’s family. At noon, we went to the diving place for an afternoon dive. Today we dove at Paintings, which is a really cool place where you swim through a canyon. After the dive, our adventure began as we headed to Good Moon Farm. We were shown all around the farm and moved into our new bungalow. We were shown the produce and the different parts of the farm. It is quite a hike moving anywhere on the farm because it is built in tiers and you have to climb up all these step switch backs. For that reason, once you head down to our bungalow, it is much of a hike back up to the main house and the top of the farm. After getting oriented at the farm, which took 2 hours, we headed to get dinner in town. When we returned from dinner, one of the farm cats had left a present of a dead snake on ou
8:33 pm Today, we were off again at 7:30 for our dive. We planned on diving a two tank dive at the wreck of the RMS Rhone. The dive is super cool because the wreck lays just as the boat went down, it was not a ship sunken for a dive site. However, when we got there, the current was too strong and we had to then drive to another dive site. So instead we first dove the Fearless, which is another boat that was sunken to create an artificial reef. For some reason, during this dive, I was going through my air tank really fast. Normally, I am surfacing around 1000 psi of air, but today I was already down to 500 by the time I even got back to the mooring line at the boat. By the time I had done a 3 minute safety stop (for nitrogen decompression) and made it to the surface, I only had 300 psi left, which made me extremely uneasy. We then headed back to the Rhone, where the current had by then decreased. Unfortunately, we only had time to dive the stern sections of the wreck, because it would
9:29 pm This morning, I got to sleep in slightly because our dive didn't begin until 8 am. Today we went and dove at two new places. First we dove at the Indians. The topography there was super cool. You circled a rock pinnacle that stuck out of the water and under water there were all these massive coral heads. We got to see a turtle and 3 rays which was super cool! After, we went to a dive site called Angelfish Reef. This second dive spot was pretty uninteresting. We went down to 80 feet, which is a new deepest record for me, but we didn't really see a lot of fish. It was mostly just sand down there with some small pieces of coral. I really wished that we could have stayed at the Indians for the second dive because there was no limit to the exploration that could have been done there. In the afternoon, my dad and I went for a nice long paddle and saw a nurse shark swimming around in the shallows. I am excited to dive my second wreck tomorrow! Hours today: 5 Hours total
Weekly Reflection #1 May 5th, 2019, 7:15 pm My first week of senior project has been an incredible experience and extremely rewarding. This week I learned an enormous amount about scuba diving. Starting with my e-certification course, I learned all about buoyancy and the theory behind scuba diving. I completed numerous skills, completing emergency procedures for mishaps underwater. The first time I took my mask off underwater at the beginning of the week, pure panic struck me and I started to accidentally suck water in through my nose. Even with my regulator in, it felt like I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t see anything. Now, I have taken it on and off in a number of dives as deep as 45 feet and it doesn’t phase me at all. I learned how to keep myself calm in situations and am very proud to have made it through my night dive without any panic or serious fear. The whole week was amazing. I got to dive already at so many different dive sites, and there are more to come. I feel confident
4:49 pm We headed out again for another dive this morning at 7:30. Today, we dove first at the Big Grotto, which is a really cool dive site with a rock arch you can swim through to this rock enclosed area. You could think of it as a cave, but ceiling-less, open to the air and the elements. During this dive, I descended to the farthest I have ever gone at 65 feet. The only difference from being at 30 or 40 feet was that I got slightly heavier and had to add some air into my BCD. We saw some awesome fish on this dive including some really big, angel fish, trigger fish, and spade fish. We also got to see an eagle ray. For our second location, I changed into a new dry wetsuit because I had been getting pretty cold underwater, even though the water here is very warm. We had to wait a little while for the nitrogen levels in our blood to decrease before beginning our second dive. This time we dove at a wreck called the Kodiak Queen. The Kodiak Queen is a 180 foot boot that once served
9:52 pm I woke up again today at 7 for another dive at 7:30. Today we dove at Cistern Point and the Vanishing Rock. During the dive today, I performed harder skills which included an emergency "no-air" ascent to the surface and navigating with a compass. We saw lots more cool fish, including three large scrawled file-fish. We also saw numerous lobster and pufferfish. After the dive we ate lunch and I took a nap, went for a swim and finished the book I have been reading ( The Secret Life of Bees). We prepared for what would be our first ever night dive. At 6 pm, the scuba instructors picked us up again, this time dressed in sweatshirts. I was super excited but also very scared for the coming dive. I had been told by my brother and dad that the dives were scary because you could literally only see where your flashlight was pointing. So we headed out for the dive. We anchored the boat at a dive site called Mountain Point and were briefed on the dive. Because it would be dark,
9:08 pm I woke up really excited at 7 this morning for our first open water dive. After a quick bowl of cereal, we were picked up by Kay and the dive team and headed out for our first session of dives. We also picked up a young girl who was crew on a local sailboat and would also be working on her certification this morning. I was nervous and excited to begin our descent. The dive went smoothly and the skills I needed to demonstrate today were quite simple-- just clearing your mask of water and doing the simplest level of out of air drills with a buddy. During these, all you need to do is notify your buddy that you are "out of air" and begin breathing with their respirator. Afterwards, you ascend to the surface and have to blow up your BCD (buoyancy control device) manually. Today, we dove first at Seal Dog Rock, and then at "the Chimney." The Chimney was super cool because you had to swim through this arch of coral and then through a tiny crack, called the chimney
9:00 pm This morning, I got up at 8:30 and after a quick bowl of cereal, I had to finish up the last sections of my e-learning portion of my certification. It again took longer than expected, with some wifi issues. Near the end of it, I was unable to watch some videos, then I had to reload the page twice, only to lose the progress of the morning. I ended up doing 3 hours of work, finally finishing up at noon. After a quick swim to cool off and some lunch, Frances and I went over to Sunchaser Scuba, where we met up with Kay. From 1-5 we completed our in-water portion of certification. We had to perform a number of different skills in shallow water to pass the exam. Over the next couple of dives, we will again have to perform these skills, but instead of being in 5 feet of water, we will be in 60 feet of water. The hardest skill for me was taking my mask off and swimming, but not breathing through my nose, and then putting it back on and clearing it of water, all of this while being und
8:27 pm This morning I woke up and went for a swim because it was super hot out. My dad and Frances and I swam to a deserted beach on an uninhabited island called Prickly Pear. Amongst trash, glass, and other debris from the hurricane was a living a family of goats. Hermit crab tracks scattered the island and we tracked them to a massive tree where we found, amongst its roots, a massive colony of hermit crabs. They took up a space of around 2 square feet and the largest one was probably 4 inches in diameter. It was quite a find. Then we watched a bunch of bees dig holes in the sand. This was one of the most interesting things I have every come across. What looked like honey bees were sitting and digging little tunnels into the sand. They looked like tiny little dogs and the sand was kicking out behind them. It was really super cute. Then they'd fly slightly above their work to check out their progress and return to dig a spot they had missed. We wanted to video it, but because we