Yesterday was a pretty awesome first day in Dominica. Since it was a Sunday, we wouldn't be able to do much work so it became a kind of free day. When the sun came up I was excited to finally see what Dominica looked like in the daylight. It is definitely a very green island with plant life everywhere. We are all staying at a dive lodge that looks out onto the Caribbean Sea and the view from my room is amazing.
As for what I did yesterday, It started with a breakfast of local fruits and fresh squeezed juices. We then went out on a boat and my coworkers all went SCUBA diving while I snorkled. The first dive site we went to was called Witch's Point and the depth drops down immediately at the shoreline. I swam along the shoreline and saw tons of beautiful fish. It didn't know what the majority of the fish were, but they sure were colorful. My favorites were the trumpet fish and the burr fish. Our second site was coral gardens and it was really cool. The water was incredibly clear and the coral reef was only about 10ft beneath me. There were thousands of fish of all different shapes, sizes, and colors and it was amazing. I don't have an underwater camera, but my boss, Jake, took lots of pics and here are some of his favorites on his flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakelevenson/archives/date-posted/2012/01/08/ves/date-posted/2012/01/08/
In the afternoon I went on a whale watching tour with the same people that took us diving/snorkling. The main whale that you see around here is the Sperm Whale. They are pretty cool when you see them, but they dive really deep and for so long that it wasn't the most exciting tour. You would see a whale and then it would dive and then you would have to sit there for 45 minutes waiting for it to come back up. We did see three different whales and a female with her calf though and of course they served rum punch too.
Today we did more work stuff. We are getting ready for going into the classrooms by the end of the week and there is lots to do. Cheryl and I inflated a lifesize humback whale, "senior whale", to make sure that he didn't have any holes and was already to meet the kids. I think the other lodge guests and employees were amused to see a whale taking over their courtyard. We also went into town to check out the fish market and to meet a group of college students from Maine that we are going to take snorkling this week. Meeting the college kids was the easy part, the hard part was getting there. I had to drive our rental car and they drive on the left side of the road in Dominica. I have driven on the left side before in New Zealand, but their roads were a lot better than here. The roads here are very narrow, with no markings and people everywhere. It was an interesting (white-knuckled) ride to say the least. What does tomorrow bring? I am learning how to scuba dive :)
Were you guys out of breath after blowing up the whale? :) Keep up the cool pics.
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