Dear Father, We are in the third week of Black Guard Basic Training and are allowed to write letters home now. The first three weeks I was really behind all the other boys because I’m not an amphibian, but I made it, but my scores in deep sea distance swimming are kind of low. But I’m working real hard and I’m not falling out of the swims anymore. After Basic Training I will still have four years of the Academy, but I have to pass Basic first. I made a good friend, Mos’Ne, from Black Island. He doesn’t actually live on Black Island, that’s closed by the shield right now. But they say my class will graduate in time to be on the Guard Flotilla that recovers Jon Black from his reincarnation cycle. That will be a great honor. Mos’Ne took a photo of me doing the Search and Rescue test. Sorry if it’s not the best photo, Mos’Ne’s camera leaks a little bit. I had to swim six miles and recover a dummy victim from a sinking dummy ship and swim back with the dummy to the recovery ship. This was the easy test, this one was in clear weather. They are waiting for a storm somewhere on the planet to take us to do the inclement weather Search and Rescue test. Tage has been sending me letters every day, we were allowed incoming mail since the first day. I got to go now, me and Mos’Ne have sandbar guard for six hours. Tell everyone I said hi and I’ll write again soon. Love, Ryota P.S. The Drill Instructor said we can have packages from home, maybe Leta can send some of those sweet seaweed cakes.