Posts from the Sea TURTLE teen diving program will continue, but at the same time New England Aquarium staff and volunteers are on their regular spring expedition to the Bahamas. This is that team's eighth post, written by Andrea.

One of the biggest challenges we faced on this trip was the weather. Even though it was sunny and 80 degrees everyday it got quite windy making the surface choppy. When we were under water diving it was nice and calm but trying to get on and off a rockin’ and rollin’ dive boat in complete SCUBA gear on was very tricky at times. It was definitely extreme diving. There were many times when we had to change our dive plans based on the weather. Everyone took it in stride and the captains were great and always found us a place to dive.

One day we had to change our plans due to the wind and the captains brought us to a place called Gun Cay. Instead of diving we did another beach seine and collected some more cool fish including a scrawled cowfish and a different species of needlefish.


We planned to do a late afternoon dive before dinner then do a night dive after dinner. But just as we were about to start setting up our gear a rain squall came rolling through. It only lasted about 30 minutes but it prevented us from doing afternoon dive. So we had dinner and went in for the night dive. And let me tell you it was worth the wait, because that was one of the coolest night dives I have ever been on and we collected a lot of great animals.




Speaking of collecting; we actually did very well collecting wise despite the weather and reached our quota early so our last three dives of the trip were pleasure dives! It just shows you how staying positive and flexible can make almost any situation turn out great.


-Andrea