Amy Day!

 Hello and welcome back to the coolest blog you’ll ever read today! We have officially dipped into the single digits with days left here at Gerace, and we have a special day upon us! It is Amy Junior’s 21st birthday (which doesn’t really mean a whole lot in this country)! Regardless we will still have a fun party at Short-Stop tonight, happy golden birthday Amy! 

A few of us ventured out to watch the sunrise at a ripe 6am. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of cloud cover this morning, but it still made for a pretty sight. We had a great view of the water crashing against the bluff, and enjoyed some good conversations about Jacob’s past as the “Lance-a-Lute” Mascot. 

We walked back to the station to get in line for breakfast. While we were waiting, we met another “pot cake” (stray island dog) who we named Herschel/Henry/Michael (we couldn’t agree upon a solid name). He was very kind and such a sweet boy. We would have taken him home but he did have evident signs of at least one tick. 

Breakfast consisted of pancakes with peanut butter, bacon, and oatmeal. We of course had the whole cafeteria sing “Happy Birthday” to Amy, she was not a huge fan. Mike examined Sarah and Jordan’s feet- to make sure no infections had ensued overnight. We went back to the dorms to change and met at 8:45 in Truck A (which is arguably our least favorite truck) to head to our morning snorkel spot! It was Amy’s pick, as she was the MVP today. We stopped alongside Rocky Point, but she was persistent on snorkeling at Monument. As we passed by SnapShot, we got rained on. We aren’t sure that Blake will ever forgive Amy for the rainy ride. 

Monument was a large patch reef, with lots of corals, sea fans, and lithified rock. We enjoyed diving down into the reef, and looking into all of the cracks and crevasses of the reef. Some of our favorite sightings were a large amount of Queen’s Parrotfish, Pufferfish, and Fairy Basslets. We also managed to collect a couple of snail and clam shells (Mike told us it was a good collecting spot but he was wrong).

When we got back, we had about a half-hour before lunch! A few of us decided to go across the street and look at the rocks and small tide pools. This time, no one stepped on an urchin or kicked a rock. We did however find some small urchins, limpets, chitin, and snails! 

For lunch today, there was Bahamian pizza, peaches, pasta salad, and beans. After lunch some headed back to the beach! We’ve been experiencing some overcast-type weather, so we tried to enjoy the sun as much as we could this afternoon before more clouds came in. As we left the cafeteria, we ran into our old pal Mikey! We made sure to give him lots of water and tell him how much we loved him. 

The afternoon wound up being beautiful! Some decided to catch up on sleep while others started work on their group proposals. Blake, Sarah, and Jordan spent their time on the beach playing in the sand: building a “castle” and burying Sarah! 

For dinner we had everyone’s favorite: meatloaf, yay! We also had mashed potatoes, green beans, steamed carrots, and lentil soup. The gracious folks in the kitchen made Amy a cake and we again sang to her (but this time, more loud and obnoxious). It was a white cake with frosting and some fun blue pearls, and it was a very nice addition to wash the meatloaf down. 

After dinner, we headed to Short Stop to celebrate Amy! We had a wonderful time dancing and playing pool, Amy even hit the ball! Tomorrow, Mike says he has some special excursion planned for us, so we shall see how that goes!

May the force be with you, 

Camille and Jordan