Paul’s Blog
Jan 16

Hello everyone, we have had a great past couple of days in terms of diving conditions.  Yesterday I had my first successful dive since being certified and I must say it was amazing (the dive at “Columbus Park” two days ago was far from successful or amazing).  We went to a dive location called “Dairy Bull” and we hit a max dept of around 60 feet where we saw some amazing fish, inverts and sea plants, unfortunately I was running low on air and had to surface.  Today was even better (luckily I got a larger tank this time); we went to “The Canyons” in Runaway Bay, which is basically exactly what it sounds like, canyons of corals.  Diving down into the canyon, if you looked to the left or right, you saw these amazing corals and sponges (as well as the many creatures that live in them), looking down however was a different story, all you could see is darkness, I was told that the canyon bottom probably goes way beyond 100 feet.  Once we got out of the canyons we came upon this sand bed where concrete benches were set up around a fountain.  It looked like an underwater garden, it was really exciting to sit on those benches and have pictures taken (hopefully they came out nicely).  Later on in the day we went to “Pear Tree Bottom” and took some wicked photos, its to feel comfortable during every dive (I even took a little nap, as seen in the picture below).  It sounds like diving just gets better and better everyday because I heard that tomorrow we most likely will attempt a wreck dive in Runaway Bay where 3 planes and 1 ship have sunk.  I believe that this dive will be the best yet, and hopefully I can get some great pictures.  Other then these recreational dives and awesome competitive volleyball games, we have been up to much research.  My project is on the food preference of the sea urchin Diadema.  My partner and I have three experiments set up.  So far the results look pretty consistent for the first experiment, and we are almost done with the second and third experiment.  Right now we are just waiting for the results to pour in so that we can finish our project, in which case we are most likely having a bonfire tonight (weather and wood permitting), which shall be sweet.  Other then that there is not much left to say, see you all when I get back to New York.

-Paul “Scuba Steve” Sypien