Coral Project

1

Another early morning awoken by Docs knocking and delightful and loud voice I shot out of bed and got ready to meet. We met at the entrance to the guava berry resort and got on the taxi driven by Glen our native friend and driver and headed to the marina for breakfast. For breakfast I had an omelette with bacon and golden Graham’s it was good. After breakfast we boarded the boat again with Jeff and Laura and headed to Long Bay. Are first swim was a snorkel around Long Bay staking the good healthy coral spots. The mission for our first dive was to harvest parts of healthy coral, we had to get at least eight pieces per team. My team was Charlie, Clayton, Drew and me and of course the best dive instructor Laura. We harvested 11 stag horn coral pieces and 5 elk horn coral pieces to plant. The second dive of the day and the last dive of the trip was the hardest dive. Our M.O was to plant the pieces of coral we had harvested using zip ties and epoxy to attach them to dead coral heads to base the growth. This was the hardest dive because we had to stay as steady as possible and maintain buoyancy to attach the pieces (I couldn’t stay steady). While trying to stay steady attaching the coral I wiped my arm up against a large fire coral head, it stung very badly and I got a rash. After these dives I was exhausted and we headed home to get ready for church. The church we went to was on a hill top with an amazing view of virgin Gorda on one side and the ocean on another side. The church was beautiful and it was just our group and one other guy so it was personal and we were the only ones singing… We weren’t very good. After church we went back to the houses and got dressed for dinner. Tonight was Italian night and we watched my groups video about global warming and it’s effects on the ocean and it’s inhabitants. I am now in the commissary and exhausted so I’m gonna go to bed. Night!

20120707-215042.jpg

20120707-215110.jpg

20120707-215124.jpg

20120707-215148.jpg