We woke up early again for a quick breakfast and drove to our next excursion. We went on a Zodiac ride that showed us the Hawaiian coast and the open ocean. While we were moving, we spotted Hawaiian spinner dolphins, Pilot Whales, a Bull Shark, and other marine animals. We learned about these animals are most active at night in the Pelagic zone. We also learned about the geological features of Hawaii’s coast. We saw underwater caves and tunnels that were created by streams of lava. We saw narrow tunnels called fire hoses, which could shoot lava up to 5 yards out. One cave in particular resembled a giant angry face. This cave was idolized by the Hawaiian people as the face of Pele, the goddess of lava. The Hawaiians would make daily sacrifices to the cave face in order to remain in good favor with the goddess.
We also learned about the history of Captain Cook, the first westerner to discover Hawaii. The Native Hawaiians treated him and his crew as gods, because they resembled the gods from their religion. However, after the Hawaiians discovered that the foreigners were mortal, they became hostile towards them. Shortly after, Captain Cook and men fought the Hawaiians in a desperate last stand. Cook’s crew were trading with the Hawaiians. In particular, they were trading the iron nails that held their boat together. This resulted in Captain Cook being trapped on the island with the angry Hawaiians. Needless to say, the Captain and his men perished. For more information about Captain Cook, go to https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cook-discovers-hawaii
After our trip on the zodiac, we went on a Manta Ray dive. Our dive instructors took us to a location where there were large lights placed underwater. The lights attracted large amounts of plankton, which in turn attracted entire schools of silverfish and a few manta rays. During the dive, we learned interesting facts about manta rays. Manta Rays, like sharks, are a kind of cartilaginous fish. There skeleton is made of mostly cartilage. Manta Rays are massive. Their wingspan can be up to 16 feet long. Manta Rays have no stingers, teeth, or others forms of natural defense and there natural predators are sharks and humans. The dive is set up so that snorkelers (me) would float on the surface and shine a line downward to attract plankton and divers would shine light upward to create a horizontal column of light. The Manta Rays would swim through the column and try to eat the plankton. I am really looking forward to the sand castle service project we are doing tomorrow.
