Can't believe it's almost the end of November and Thanksgiving was this week! I hope everyone had a great holiday. I was definitely missing home, family, and friends on Thursday- I think the most in a long time. I do have to say though that I wasn't missing the cold (the snow maybe a little haha)!
We continued working at the international school this week, however the couple that runs the school are from the US and therefore the school had a Thanksgiving break (closed from Thursday -Monday). We spent more time with the five and six year olds, and also spent hours washing their toys that had not been washed in almost three years!! They were very very grateful for our help with that project. We got to go with the students to the international school's playground down the street from the school. Originally the school had just been a library, but when they built it out into a school they also created a big, nice playground down the street in an empty lot for the kids to play in. This was the first time we really got to spend time with the kids while they were running around playing and it was fun and a good contrast to working with the people at the dive shop!
Kira's friend Dennis visited this week for Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving night we ate out at this restaurant called El Pasito. I had black squid ink risotto and shared ceviche. It was soo good, but of course I still missed home.
On Friday I helped at the dive shop all day. In the morning I was just in the shop getting kits ready and in the afternoon four of us volunteers had to go out to do do snorkeling surface cover with clients who were try diving. There were 17 of them, and they were all on a mission trip from places like Indiana, Ohio, and South Carolina and ranging in age from ten year olds to seniors. We split them up into three groups and took each group out for a short shore dive from Punta Poppy. As surface cover, pretty much we snorkeled above the divers (because they were new and not certified) and made sure they were ok. If anything went wrong we were supposed to notify Paul, Audrey, or Josh who was on rescue. Everything went safely, but it did take about four hours and until the sun was setting to get everyone in for their dive. To be honest, at the end I was very hangry and cold and all I wanted to do was go take a warm shower and go to sleep! The sunset that we saw from the water was very pretty though which put me in a better mood! After this when we got back to Fata Morgana Josh made me his special hot chocolate which was super tasty and good.
Over the weekend I didn't do that much but I went to Playa Bonita both days. On Saturday I went around far to the left of the beach with a couple friends and around the point to where the water is calmer. There was, yet again, a beautiful sunset that faded over the green hills.
I had three more dives this week, with one of them counting toward my advanced certification meaning I have two more to do to be a certified advanced NAUI diver.
The first two dives (not counting toward my certification) were on Monday at a deep wreck near a beach called Portillo a little ways out of Las Terrenas and at a coral garden a little closer. We were supposed to do the dives on Sunday but it ended up being two wavy so we went on Monday instead. The first dive went smoothly, with the wreck being at about 25 meters. We were able to swim through the top cabin of the boat and we some lion fish and other smaller colorful fish.
On the second dive, I still was able to dive but I was having a hard time equalizing my ears. I still saw the beautiful coral garden but couldn't go deeper than 18 meters for some reason.
After lunch break, Paul wanted me to stay and help paint the wall of the compression room. This didn't take all afternoon however, and after this Jack wanted to go on another dive to go look for his mask and a clients mask that got lost by Punta Poppy a day earlier. He wanted our help to look, so we all kitted up and drove to Punta Poppy. Ironically, as we were putting our fins on in the water, Jack lost the new mask that he was using, and so now we had to find three masks instead of two. On the dive, I was fine at first, but only a few minutes into the dive I was unable to equalize one of my ears only at three or four meters, so I decided not to risk anything and got out of the water. The rest of the divers returned without any of the lost masks.
Yesterday, on Tuesday, I did a shore dive successfully in the morning. This dive was from Punta Poppy and another attempt at looking for the lost masks. We again didn't find any. After this dive in the afternoon I stayed to help paint the stairs leading up to the dive shop and then went home.
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