Stary, stary night...

We are at beginning of 10th week and mood around here is shiftig from happy to sad, as this is it.  Anyway, before all that, let me tell you a bit more about what have we done in past few weeks. In

the past several weeks we had lots of wind which was really, really great because there were absolutely no MOSQUITOS – Hooray, yep

no mosquitos, so it was time to lie down in hammocks. The only problem is, we have only 8 hammocks and there is 25 of us, so you have to run and fight for them or come up with really good reason why those people in them should leave them.

Well, so once you lie down in the hammock and look up (we are talking in the evening), what you going to see is sky covered with stars. There are thousands and thousands of them. It is really amazing to stare up and dream – not think, dream about everything and nothing and you might find yourself just snoring off (that happens a lot). Anyway, so if you are still awake and wonder what are the names of all these stars, well I won¨t be able to help, I do not know either. Oh well….

With all that wind, comes another problem. NO DIVING. Yep, the pass is un-passable, the waves are high, boats are small, divers are scared and so on and there is the safety issue too…

So what do you do, when we do not dive? Well, staff members try really hard to get you involved in various things like swimming (not many did it), BTEC – quite interesting, get Rescue course done – that was very productive and volleyball tournament. First few days the only thing everyone wanted to do was to lie in hammock (fight), catch on some seep, read books.

After few days we got fed up so staff came up with Olympic games idea. Instead of countries competing against each other (13 countries in here), we had 3 teams – fish, coral and staff members. The categories were: spin the chair, tag of war, long jump, spider web, coconut throw. One would not guess how one can be so competitive. Especially corals versus fish, since fish was loosing big time. But as I was part of the fish team, I can say that coral cheated of tag f war. We all suffered bruises and injuries but done all that it was great fun taking us back to childhood.

But as fun has it, after 3 or 4 days of diving we were all anxious to get back to diving and so we

did. And we were welcomed by group of
dolphins and another group was lucky enough
to see the nurse shark (no photo proof).

Beginning of 10th week we are not diving again

due to wind so we are all very fed up as we

want to finish collecting all the data and we

can not and we have only 3 diving days left,

without today. Not only that we are fed up,

but the feeling of leaving the base has hit us.

We spend 10 weeks together and we got to know each other really well, even things we did not want to know. Everything comes to last… last blog, last kitchen duty, last week, last class of English in Mahahual, last dropping of laundry, last party night….. I could fill up this page with last things.

We all collected unforgettable memories and we all have made friends for life. To me this was

a huge and great experience and I have learned quite a lot about myself. If I had the chance I 

would do it again all over. I would recommend this to everyone who wants to be part of something great and make a difference. If you are worried about the press release – just remember – pres tries to sell things and the info is usually over-exaggerated and overblown and spoils the experience for everyone. This area is very safe and people here are so friendly and amazing and when you walk down the road on your day off, they shout GVI or your name as you are part of their community, even if it is just for a few weeks.

GO FOR IT AND ENJOY IT
BECAUSE IT IS WELL WORTH IT

Stary, stary night...