"It's a whole nother world down there..."

Colby fam, that use of "whole nother" was for you. I hope you appreciated it.

But anyway, the title of this blog just became even more accurate because nothing is closer to flying than SCUBA diving on a coral reef. I just got back from my first real dive, complete with buddies and decompression stops an everything. And I'm still alive! I can't believe I get to do this around twice a week for the rest of the semester.

We were tested on our diving skills in the pool the other day, and were then put into small groups of mixed skill levels. I'm with four other students and one intern. Pretty sure I'm one of the less experienced haha...But still, it was awesome. My wetsuit is so thick that I have to wear an extra 22 lbs of weight, which is sort of ridiculous, but it doesn't feel like anything underwater. Transporting the gear to and from the boat though, that's a bit of a pain.

Underwater it's so peaceful, and everything is so beautiful. I understand now why seeing a shark won't be scary when it happens. It's hard to explain, but somehow you feel like you're all on the same side down there (don't worry, I won't be so happy go lucky that I'll do something stupid!). We didn't see any large animals today, but we saw gorgeous coral and millions of colorful fish. Here are some pictures (that I found on the internet because I don't have an underwater camera) of the species that we saw:

Blue headed wrasse

French angelfish

Fan coral

Staghorn coral

Stoplight parrotfish

Yesterday we had our first ID slideshow on all of the species we will have to know for the mangrove habitat. Except the lab practical for this will be in the field! The interns will point at a species and we have to write the latin name on our dive slates. My head is so full of latin right now it's ridiculous. We had six lectures yesterday, and a talk from a guy who runs an eco-tourism business on Provo. So all of our brains are fried, but full of knowledge!

This afternoon we'll be talking about what we'll be doing for community involvement, which will start next Saturday. Every time we go into town all the little kids run up to us asking when we'll start having swim lessons at the center again. They are so cute, and I can't wait! We're also going to be doing beach clean-ups, teaching ESL classes, and helping out in the schools. So more on that later, I'll let you all get back to your lives now.

Also, 30 Rock reference in the title anyone?