27th March - James

 Today we had our first open water dives to 12m (yay!!). The 5 of us were up before the sun to head off (slightly less fun—but sunrise was pretty!). We were joined by Kira from Ocean’s Alive who is training to be a divemaster and so was helping out Sarah (the instructor) on our dives. After kitting up, we boated out to Kilifi Bay for our first dive! It was so cool—the water was so clear that we could easily see to the bottom from the boat and the visibility was fantastic. After practicing some skills, we went for a swim in the reef which was phenomenal! The coral and fish were so colourful and I personally just love the feeling of gliding through the water. Sarah apparently saw several turtles (one below the water and the others from the boat) but they disappeared before the rest of us could see them (probably because Emily is with is and she REALLY wants to see one full grown!)

On our second dive, Emily and Hugo had to practice a Controlled Emergency assent where they would quickly swim to the surface on one breath (the rest of us were the day after). The rest of us decided to use the time to (very productively) play rock paper scissors and try some underwater gymnastics which was hilarious. We then went for another leisurely swim in which we saw some eels, scorpionfish, lion fish (it was like we were back on safari!) before heading back to finish the morning with some written theory. 

While we were off on our fun adventures, the 3 not scuba diving passed the time with a beach walk, a Swahili lesson, and by starting on the mud hut we are going to build with Juma back at Popes. It will apparently be used as a small museum about the culture of the region.

By the time we got back they had moved onto their next craft project—making signs. Coco and Anna’s looks fantastic! It is about watching your feet so you don’t step on coral and they put so much time and effort into it and it definitely shows. 

We all ended the day with dance lesson from Juma and two guest acrobats at the beach. They were so cool and we learned some great moves. Then, they demonstrated some of their acrobatics which was amazing. One of them was able to do a hand stand on top of the other! 

Some of us stuck around a little longer and made on of our redheads (Coco) into a mermaid in the sand and went for a swim. A great time finish to a long day!