Scuba Diving and New Volunteers

When in Rome... do as the Romans do. It's hard living on a tropical island for so long and not scuba diving. Learning in the ocean sure beats a swimming pool! The snorekling is also nice (hint, hint- you might want to visit?) I saw a huge brain coral the other day! It was wider than me and about 2 or 3 feet long. Today I went on two dives and saw 3 huge sting rays, 3 moray eels, a conch, tons of fan coral, brain coral, a barracuda, and tons of fish. The dive instructor showed me how to touch the large sting ray between the eyes and pet it. They're very docile creatures and stayed still while I pet them. Sonja is a very patient instructor and she's a lot of fun to dive with. She is able to identify and point out a lot of the wildlife.

The volunteers arrived this past week. It's been a slow week getting everyone settled in, but I've been getting to know the new volunteers and they're all really nice. They're from Britain, Scotland, and France. I've been practicing my French with the French woman. My French is horrible because I haven't spoken it since high school. I'm picking up some phrases here and there.

Work in the Botanical Garden is going well. I put in an order for the plants in the Fruit Garden on Friday. We have to spend the money in the grant that we received by December 31st. So hopefully this week we can clear out the Corallita (it will most likely grow back in 3 days) and then plant some of the fruit trees when they come in. Usually things take a while to come in when ordered, so there's no guarantee that these plants will come within the next two weeks. Also, hopefully next week someone is going to come out and look at the children's garden. It is covered in Corallita and very sloped. We're hiring a bulldozer to level it into three large level areas. Once the area is leveled we'll be able to seed it with grass which will hopefully out compete the Corallita. So there's a lot going on and my job is currently keeping me very busy. I'm also going to be writing a press release for STENAPA about the grant money and how we're spending it. So it's promising to be a busy week.