Last Day

My last few days at TRACC have flown by as expected, and I’m happy to say my very last day on Pom Pom couldn’t have been more perfect. The day began with a 6am turtle release, where I saw about a dozen turtles hatch and make their way into the sea. At this point I’ve seen turtle releases at midnight and sunset, but I have to say the sunrise release was my favorite. Watching these baby turtles venture into the sea with the sun rising in front of them was a great start to the day.

The camp management decided to make a final joke of me when making the day’s schedule. As I mentioned before, I’ve pretty much become an underwater janitor at TRACC with being put exclusively on manual labor and reef scrub activities. My schedule for the day was listed with all kinds of scrubs: 9am step reef scrub, 11am ARC reef scrub, 1pm biscuit scrub, 3pm turtle scrub and 6pm night scrub. I had a good laugh at this and we all joked about how the reef cleanliness will inevitably suffer after my departure.

My actual schedule was to just join any fun dive that I wanted, which allowed me to dive at Lobster Wall, Eastern Plateau and North Tip. Each dive was unique and had me feeling nostalgic about my time here and how amazing it’s been. I couldn’t help but wonder when I’ll dive next after ascending from my last dive, and I know I’ll miss this every day.

At night we partied with some beers and whiskey, hanging out on the beach until after midnight. I couldn’t have asked for a better last day, filled with great dives, great people, and plenty of laughs.

I knew my time here would go quickly, but it still seems surreal that it’s over. These last two months have flown by and I feel like just yesterday I arrived on the island and was greeted by 30 tan, dirty strangers who would soon become great friends. I feel so fortunate to have had this experience and know I’ll look back on this time as being something special. At TRACC you live simply, learn constantly, grow personally, and party hard. The knowledge I’ve gained, experiences I’ve had, and people I’ve met will stay with me forever, and I’m so glad I allowed myself to take this risk and pursue something I had been thinking about for over a year.