Scubaaaaa!

This past weekend I went out for one dive with Goldenrock Dive Center here on Statia. It was me, one of my classmates and a tourist named Clem from Alabama.

We went to a site called Aquarium on the southwest side of the island and WOW!! It was definitely the best dive spot I have been to in the Caribbean! Tons of fish of all kinds of varieties! Also saw several Eels, lobster, and at least 3 Lionfish.

Now, the Lionfish are very pretty fish, but they are very bad for the other fish in the reef as well as the coral itself. They have no natural predators and will eat up the reef until they are fat and happy!

The Lionfish have big spines mixed into those fins that carry toxins that can even harm humans. Sooo, our dive instructor Glenn used a small speargun to kill them. He got 2 of them for sure and the biggest one got hit, but managed to get away, so he may or may not have died.

Its kinda sad that they have to kill them, but if they didn't, the waters around here would get over-run with lionfish and they would ruin the reefs. 

On our way back to the dock, it was definitely one of the prettiest days that I have seen while here on Statia. You could see The Quill very easily with no cloud cover over it. (The Quill is a dormant volcano that you can actually hike up into. I haven't done it yet, but I plan to before I leave here).

Snapped a photo with my iPhone!

Oh, and I got to use my new regulator and dive watch on the dive! Loved them both.. although I gotta figure something out with my wireless dive watch, because it kept losing signal with the transmitter on my back and was beeping in my ear. It was quite frustrating, so I'll figure that out and not have to deal with it so much! 

Anyway, Path quiz tomorrow, so off to studying! 

Seriously?

Did Chuck Norris come down here and punch the tropical storm in the face or something? Last night it started to rain and blow like we were on the edge of the storm, I went to bed and woke up to bright blue skies. Thinking maybe we were in the eye or something, I look on the internet and find the storm slowed down and hadn't come thru yet. Here I am 12 hours later and the storm is "right on top of us", but I don't even thinks it's rained for more than 20 mins today.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at all, but I've been cooped up in my house all day for nothing. They closed up the school and no one could go there to study or anything b/c of the storm. Thats the only place I can get productive studying done, so today all I did was watch several episodes of Friday Night Lights (thanks mom for getting me hooked on that!) and watch football! Not a bad day by any means, but I do need to be studying! :/

So, now that they opened up the school, I am there now and attempting to study. As you can tell by me blogging, its not going well so far! loL! Ohhhh well! There is always tomorrow right?

Oh, and I'm keeping up to date with the Hogs game via Twitter! Go HOGS!

Woooooo Pig Sooie!!!

Tropical Storm Maria

Sounds harmless right? Well... I will let you know.

She is on her way here and is gonna give us basically a direct hit. The center is projected to hit a hundred miles south of us and travel southwest of us, but that means that we will be getting the Northeast side of the storm, which if you know anything about hurricanes, the Northeast side is the side that brings the most rain and winds.

I just got an email from the school and they told us that they were closing the school building to students at 5:00 today (they kicked everyone out about 20 mins ago) and they will reopen on Monday at 8:00 am. 8 AM?!?!?! This storm will be outta here by saturday afternoon... I can't study at home! UGHHH!!!!!!

My landlord of course does not have a generator, so if (and probably more appropriately WHEN) the power goes out, it will be dark, hot and miserable here. I have plenty of water and food, but its still gonna suck! :(

I'm ok with the storm as long as I have power... thats all I'm asking for is to not knock out the power. Just one little thing! Thats it.. simple as that!

Well, if I have power and internet, I'll update as it goes!

Until then... here is a look at sweet lil Maria on her way over here.