February 2021

 March 2, 2021

!Hola mis amigos! 

Let's get this blog writ! I've been trying to write this for hours, actually weeks lol, but then I was distracted by texting my grandmother. So, as you know, my computer and/or the internet is constantly caput. Which makes it super hard to do the business accelerator program I'm in until the end of the month as well, which I should be doing right now to be honest but oh whale. Another thing I don't like about having to hand write my posts than transfer them online is that my handwriting is super sloppy so I hope I can read what I'm writing bc my hand already hurts which makes my chickenscratch worse. 

Anywhos, it's now March. March 2nd. I've been here since February and have updated ya'll on nothing but sucky internet. Oops. So I guess I'll just start at the beginning and along the way we'll see if it's a big summary or lots of little detail posts but the more detailed posts will come after Nick leaves because he leaves me tired lol he's only here for a few more weeks, sadly. Not sure if I mentioned it in my other post or not, but Nick is like South African Kai, like they are carbon copies of each other (except Kai is skinnier and older with blue eyes) and it is so nice to have friends that are like family and just like idk what I'd do without Kai at home, idk what I'm gonna do without Nick here. I've been trying to make other friends too of course but it's just not the same as having a "brother" here with me. Nick is coming to school in America tho so that's cool, maybe we can go diving in the States. 

So that's not the beginning lol. The beginning is I arrived at Sharklife. I already told ya'll about the room and food. So the first day, we got up at like 5 and were supposed to go out on the boat so we take the boat to the beach (they do beach launches here) and the water was super rough and we came right back and didn't even go out. Nick's mom and girlfriends and friends were here for Nick's mom's birthday so she took us to lunch/breakfast and I got a banana milkshake and it was actually kinda gross but now I get the Oreo milkshakes and those are great. Anyways, so since Nick's mom was here, he got the day off and Sam showed me how to do I3S, the database system we use to match raggies based on their spots so we can track when we've seen which raggie shark where to track their migration patterns and movements. Then, since Craig still wasn't here, Grant said I could have the rest of the day off too to rest. But like these walls are literal paper (bamboo paper) thin and I can't sleep during the day so I was just laying here wishing I was better at making friends, snapchatting my friends back home and then Sam needed help finding her dog, Chidi, so I helped them look and poor Nick, I haven't left his side since lol.

The next few days it was tropical storming so we just stayed in the office doing I3S. At first it was really easy because the matches came really easy but it gets frustrating because the quality of the photos aren't the best and it's hard to see the spots and I'm already like blind so sometimes it's hard. Lila suggested I print the pictures and highlight the spots to match but I can't because there's literally thousands of pictures and it needs to be in the database system. Eventually Craig arrived and we did I3S and had some lessons on the boat and how to set it up and take care of it and all that, but Nick already showed us so we already knew a bit.

Eventually, it stopped hurricaning, but it lasted for a solid week and stretched all the way from Africa to Madagascar (which is another place I want to go - these South Africans have me wanting to explore all over. I've already told Avnish for years I'd come visit him in Mauritius and now let's add Mozambique and Madagascar to the list as well).

So on February 18 I went on a dive and I had a hard time equalizing and was freaking out. Madison said the storm pressure was probably affecting it and Lila and my dad said I just needed to practice but I was very upset because I didn't want all my dives here to be so awful because dives like that are why I lowkey hated diving. Hated past tense because now I love it, bring on instructor, but we'll get there lol. So anyway, it was still hurricaning so then we didn't go out again until Feb 23rd, with a girl I actually went to college with! 

Michelle is getting her PhD and doing her thesis on Manta Rays so she came to Sharklife to do some research for that thesis. Turns out she was a senior at Eckerd when I was a freshman! I didn't know her, but we do have a few mutual friends and I was like Sharklife would be a great winter term for Eckerd and she was like "yeah I'm already talking to Grant about it" lol so yeah. Anyways, before we went down I was like "it might take me a bit to get down because sometimes I have equalization issues" but BRO. MY EARS EQUALIZED ON COMMAND! For the first time in my entire life, including all my dives and rescue diver and all the planes I've flown and everything! So that's amazing. It only took almost 24 years, tons of scuba and freediving classes, and countless plane rides but I can FINALLY equalize! Woo hoo! I was so excited to call and tell my dad but he was working.

I then went out diving every single day until our day off on Saturday and haven't experienced equalization problems since. Woo hoo! Happy days. Now I love diving and will definitely advance to dive master and even probably instructor. 

Okay, Nick is saying we're going out in 15 minutes now so I guess I'll end this post here and catch up with ya'll next time. Just keep swimming ya'll! 

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha