{"id":448,"date":"2009-07-22T15:10:11","date_gmt":"2009-07-22T14:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bvblog.wpengine.com\/?p=448"},"modified":"2014-04-23T12:44:18","modified_gmt":"2014-04-23T11:44:18","slug":"underwater-greetings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.blueventures.org\/en\/underwater-greetings\/","title":{"rendered":"Underwater greetings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first evening we sat around in the restaurant hoping for the best; firstly that the food was edible and secondly that the group would be ok. We soon found out how lucky we were; the food was amazing and the company was even better! We were all very different in ages, nationalities and backgrounds. The staff consisted of Katie (the leader who\u2019s supposedly from Yorkshire), CJ (the turtle and shark loving Manchurian), and Rich (the handshaking, backgammon fanatic from South Africa). <\/p>\n

For the first week the group was split as I and five others learned to dive and amazingly by the end had finished the advanced course, which meant deep dives at wrecks and buoyancy obstacle courses. The others went on dives to remove as many Crown of Thorns (starfish) from the reefs as possible and started making their video on being a good diver.
\nWe quickly settled into the routine of the day which meant 2-3 dives; much underwater handshaking and clapping, binging on the weirdest snacks we could find and downing as much Milo as possible. Every evening at 7pm- ish we had meetings with Katie who told us the plan for the next day which is always highly secretive and very different. After dinner our evenings are filled with either very competitive backgammon games, volleyball (I still have many bruises) or \u2018scrubbing the boat\u2019 i.e. drinking in Cabana bar a few meters down the beach. <\/p>\n

Cabana is the most relaxed bar on the planet, with an amazing layout with hammocks and surfboards. The owners are great and especially amazing at fire Poi. (Something a few of us are trying to learn which means many tennis balls smacking our faces repeatedly). Friday night was party night at Cabana and that\u2019s all I\u2019m going to say about that \ud83d\ude09 <\/p>\n

Bye!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stefanie Menashe. The first evening we sat around in the restaurant hoping for the best; firstly that the food was edible and secondly that the group would be ok. We soon found out how lucky we were; the food was amazing and the company was even better!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":28415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[467],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"yoast_head":"\nUnderwater greetings - Blue Ventures - Beyond Conservation blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Stefanie Menashe. The first evening we sat around in the restaurant hoping for the best; firstly that the food was edible and secondly that the group would be ok. 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