From the Valenza Trip Journal:

Day 13

After a refreshing sleep, the crew of the Valenza awoke to an energizing morning dive on a site called "Twilight Zone"--our deepest dive yet!! In Maggie's words: “It was amazing to look out over the ridge and see nothing but blue." When we returned to the boat, we had a great breakfast of pancakes made by our chefs-of-the-day, Ellie and Ben. After breakfast, it was chill time and another dive off of a new (yet no less exciting) site called "Babylon" where Logan encountered our first gold spotted eel and Sarah found a huge sea turtle. Scuba Steve (our nickname for Steve the photographer) and a group of four students -- Emma, Ben, Maggie and Peter -- went to a different site called "Man O' War Shoals" which, despite its name, sported none of the much-feared jellyfish (thank goodness!!). Unfortunately, they didn't have as exciting a time as the main group, but the third dive of the day more than made up for it. After Babylon and Man O' War Shoals, it was a quick lunch and a nap. Emma had a lot of fun stealing Ben's traditional nap spot in the hammock.

Later in the afternoon, Jordan gave us an important lecture about rescue diving. We learned about how to use oxygen (not Neosporin!!) for diving accidents, how to control bleeding, treat cuts, bites, heat strokes and decompression illness, which went well with our visit to the decompression chamber in Saba yesterday.

Finally, the tanks were pumped for our third and, sadly, last dive of the day. Tiffany took us back to one of our favorite sites in Saba: Diamond Rock. This time the party was complete, as even our skipper, Joe, was able to join us for the dive. Natalie and Scott saw about six small stingrays, but little Joe found the real prize of the dive: a huge southern stingray easily the size of the table aboard the Valenza -- or bigger!! In addition, Miriam and Trevor found a second gold spotted eel, and Steve got some good shots of Sarah swimming with a friendly sea turtle.

When we came up from the dive it was already time to blast music and watch the sunset. Natalie, Emma, big Joe, Ben, Maggie, Sarah, Trevor, Logan, Tiffany and Miriam had a hilarious impromptu arm wrestling tournament in which Natalie beat everyone -- even the infamous Tiffany -- with the exception of Ben. Big Joe beat both Natalie and Ben! Meanwhile, in the galley (kitchen), Ellie, despite offers for help, decided to single-handedly take on dinner preparation for the first time ever on this trip. And what an excellent job she did!

As the day drew to a close, we enjoyed Ellie's dessert of fruit salad and discussed our long sail to Nevis and what we will do once we get there. We are certainly looking forward to tomorrow!!

Miriam

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