Rise and shine, I was up and about at 6:30, or 5:30 Dallas time and met over at my good buddy Harrison’s hut at around 6:50. We quietly made tea, and headed down the wifi lounge. After a chat and some light conversation with our teachers, we headed to meet the taxi so we could eat breakfast at the “Olde Yard Village”. After a rather tasteful breakfast, Casey began to explain to us the Importance of Reef Check. Reef Check is an international group that created a standard way to record the health of reefs. This standard helps keep track of the reefs and thus helps us save the reefs. (for importance of reefs…check google, there is too much info to put in one post) This standard way consisted of laying down 100 meters of rope. 15 minutes after laying it down, you go through and count fish in your 5 meter “tunnel”. 5 meters up and 5 meters to the left and right, counting certain indicator species which dictate the health of the reef. You swim for 20 meters and count throughout, then swim for 5 meters without counting and you repeat that the whole 100 meters (just keep swimming swimming swimming just keep swimming), this way you get to redo the “experiment” 4 times within the reef thus getting a more realistic result. We then headed down to savannah bay to practice and snorkel the reefs. ( I also wrote cheesy romantic things in the sand to take pictures of for my gf, but that’s another story) We ate lunch,(PB&J with skippy peanut butter, the most delicious peanut butter money can buy(h and grandmas cookies)) then David Harrison and I snorkeled like crazy. We saw a jelly fish, a 2 1/2 foot snapper, a colony of 30 or so squid(no ink 🙁 ), and even some Blue Tangs(DORRY). We learned onshore, a bit about some specific invertebrates that we would be counting (sea urchin aka sea porcupine), and then headed up to the baths. The baths was full of rocky caves which we, quite safely, went through to get to devil’s bay. We had a nice fun swim in the bay, and then headed back to meet the taxi to go to dinner. We had dinner at the Turtle and Bath, where the ribs were deeelicious. (omnomnomnomnom). Our taxi was late so David Harrison and I hung out by the Marina and reminisced about our lovely ladies back at home and just about life. Twas glorious. We got home and here I am, hope y’all have fun. This is Colin Taylor saying, ….uh bye.
