Today was very nervracking and exciting. We started out our day with sickness unfortunately. Two of our classmates came down with food poising the night before. But they soon felt better the next morning and we’re back to normal. We started our diving for the day at rocky location that had many underwater trenches and passages. It was really cool to see all of the colorful coral. I also saw these little yellow flower looking things growing on the walls of the trenches. I also had to squeeze myself through a narrow passage way, trying to dodge fire coral. After that dive we went to meet Casey and help her clean her coral nurseries. She went through on how to clean them and why we have them. They are basically white pipes holding strings of broken coral. These prices of coral will soon be able to sustain themselves and be the building blocks for new coral reefs. I was very excited to be apart of that. It was not so much fun cleaning the algea off of the coral but it was a labor of love. After that we headed over to the same bay we helped Casey capture invertebrates to have lunch. After lunch me and some of my classmates tried to out do each other in a flipping off the boat contest. I thought I won, but that’s just me. We then swam towards the beach to see a salt pond. Not a lot to see except for layers of salt on the ground but Beth, one of our instructors had told us all about the ecological benifits salt ponds have on animals and surrounding areas. They basically are filtering system for degree that falls off mountians, rather than it falling into the ocean. The salt also attract many crabs, which feed several animals such as flamingos. After that we raced against the other boat group to the boats, my group one, and we didn’t have fins. We then headed back to our houses to prepare for our presentations on our projects. I was responsible for the confusion and why coral and herbavours are both important for the enviorment. The basis of our project was to see which density of stag horn coral would promot the largest number of herbivore fish. We found to ur surprise that stag horn coral mixed with other types of coral had the largest amount of fish. And we also tested a control the other day to see how many fish would be present in a non coral area. Theses observations told us two things. One, in order for fish to have shelter and food, coral must be present. Two, if there is only one type of coral, then it won’t sustain a large enough population of herbivores to eat away the algea. To much algea on coral could make the coral not healthy, causing it to die. So in conclusion, if we lose our coral, we lose the fish. And if we don’t have have enough herbavours, our coral won’t grow and be healthy due to much algea. And for a more ecological look on it, if we lose our coral and fish, we lose our coral reefs. Why do we care? Because if we lose coral reefs, then nothing will break up the swells of water from eroding the shoreline. So if we don’t have coral reefs; we don’t have a shoreline or beaches. And I don’t know about you, but I like the beach. I thought that my group did a really good job and I’m anxious to see what our teachers think. After that we ate dinner. Before dinner I accidentally threw the only frisbee into the ocean and had to swim out to fetch, not fun. But I’m sad that our time here is almost fishinshed and I’ll miss the BVI very much.
