We did underwater navigation first. It was a lot of compass work, but I was actually pretty proud of myself for figuring it out. The instructor was way better at explaining it than my open water class was, and it actually helped quite a bit. Second was Fish ID (I work at an aquarium, it was a piece of cake), and third was underwater photography/videography. I was slightly disappointed because I was hoping to borrow/rent out an actual dSLR with an underwater housing for the day, but the instructor just brought his GoPro... Nothing against GoPros, but like I did my entire AP concentration on underwater scenes that I had to take through glass because I didn't have an underwater camera. So I would've preferred the real deal. But the instructors camera did have the red filter so maybe the quality will be a bit better than normal for GoPros. I guess I'll find out once he sends the footage.
Cool stuff I saw:
We saw a green moray on the first site, and also a yellow stingray. I'd never actually seen a wild one before so that was pretty cool. Their camouflage is insane. On the third dive there was a cowfish and a goliath grouper. There was another goliath on our fourth dive, as well with a lionfish hanging out right next to it. On pretty much all the dives there were hogfish, both french and queen angels, goatfish, trumpetfish, parrotfish (:D), lobsters, etc. There was some elkhorn coral on the last two sites, it was in pretty good shape actually and was decent sized. Nice to see it coming back. Also there were swim-throughs on the last site (these little tunnels formed by coral build-up that you can swim through) that were really fun.
And another thing that happened: On my third dive I found someone's dive knife sitting on a big head of star coral, and I took it up to the surface with me. It had apparently been there for a few days though, so the instructor let me keep it. I have my very own dive knife now! It's small but really nice. And I feel like the fact that I found it makes it way cooler. I'm going to see about finding a sheath for it today :3
