March 3rd

These are busy days as we watch the time fly by.  Divers have been busy on land as well as sea.  This morning we completed a beach clean up on a small stretch of coast inside the marine park reserve.  SES students filled the back of a small truck with debris ranging from tires to souls of shoes.  In the process they picked over 1300 food bags and 330 plastic soda bottles.  Many more items were also collected and counted.  Although they felt they only put a dent into the mounds of trash there efforts were greatly appreciated but the coordinators of the clean up.

Study Study Study!

If you are wondering about the photos, this is how we do class in Roatan.  Today we completed our science dives.  Dive buddies were given a section of reef to observe and sketch.  They recorded data on  the fish that interacted with their section of the reef.  This was done to get students to slow down and really study the reef as an ecosystem.  They really did a fantastic job.  It is hard to believe we only have two dives left.

Our Classroom

Students have already taken over a thousand photos and will be selecting some of their best for a "Best of Roatan 2011".  We will put these on a DVD along with all the photos each students has taken,  I think your will be amazed and impressed.  I know we are.

Wednesday, March 2nd

Sorry there was no post yesterday; it was a busy day.  All but one of our Open Water students finished their certification in the morning and then they all had a nice afternoon dive where they got a chance to enjoy the reef as certified divers and try their hand at underwater photography.  The students took amazing pictures and we will try to post some tomorrow, but trust us they were great!  Then they got a chance to do a little shopping before we went out for yet another excellent meal.  A few students even purchased some coconut milk which involves a chilled coconut being cut open with a machete and a straw inserted for drinking the delicious milk... mmmm!

Today our last open water diver finished up her training and now EVERYONE is officially certified!!  That makes 13 PADI Open Water Divers and 4 PADI Advanced Divers.... Congratulations to all our certified divers!!!  

All the students dove together today.   On their first dive they either took more underwater photos or completed a science dive.   For the science dive they observed a small section of the reef for about 15 minutes and as a buddy pair one student sketched the area of the reef and the other observed all the fish that came in an out of the section and what they were doing.  This helped them to see the smaller things happening in the reef and how the fish and coral interact.