10
Location: Anegada
Title: Bird! Today I woke everyone up with a gentle “good morning!” whisper into the ear of each sprawled out sleeper. Once everyone had drudged to the table, we each had several bowls of cheerios and frosted mini wheats and were quickly laughing together over the fact that Claire’s pillow had mysteriously fallen overboard during the night. The day’s agenda was fairly similar to yesterday’s, so after the dishes were finished we all climbed into the dinghies with excitement and anticipation for another day of turtle tagging! I sincerely hoped that I would have more success today with the turtles than yesterday. We arrived at the docks and climbed into the cab that we’ve been using these past few days. As we arrived at the Old Anegada Yacht Anchorage our poor taxi sputtered to a stop, it was sad, but I guess my car would give up on me too if I tried to shuttle 32 people around for three days. The driver had run out of gas! However, his cousin quickly brought us more, and we were underway yet again. As we waited to take the boats out for another round of turtle tagging I read the last few pages of the crime novel I’ve been reading during all of the lulls on our trip (which are close to none!) Nonetheless, today I finished it and afterwards we all passed it around and watched each other’s facial reactions to some of the scarier scenes in the book. It passed a good 45 minutes! Finally, Doria, Claire, and I got to load into the little motorboat and set out on another turtle hunt! We were all very determined, but after about 40 minutes of motoring with bad visibility and no turtles in sight, it began to pour rain! It was freezing, and it came in sheets. After each minute of rain passed we could see another sheet of rain headed towards us from a distance. It was surreal and fun to watch. We returned with defeat in our hearts, but as we were entering the anchorage we saw a beautiful bird! Doria and I had no idea what kind it was, but Claire said it was a gray heron! We turned to Chad, our boat driver, and asked “Hey! What is that?” to which Chad replied “bird.” Although his answer did not clarify much, it did lighten the mood!
After we released the turtles, we headed to the iguana sanctuary where we awaited our newly running taxi that took us back to the docks. When we got back to the boat, we bleached and tidied until Grins looked as good as it did when we first walked on well almost. As a reward for our wonderful work, we got some time with our cell phones! As another reward, we got a summertime Thanksgiving! Currently, everyone is collapsed on various benches, couches, and beds with bellies full of potatoes and stuffing. All and all it was a good day! Love you mom, dad, Sean, and Risden! Miss you guys!