Today started with an early breakfast, which was followed by a boat briefing. Quickly, after the briefing ended, we gathered our gear and got on the boat ready to go on our first dive of the trip. We went on a quick boat ride from the resort to the school house dive site. We quickly and excitedly jumped in the water and went down to a depth of 35 ft. for the first dive. Immediately we saw a large school of black durgon, which we identified with the back body and white stripes on the wavy dorsal fin. The black durgon appeared black from a far but when we looked at it closer after online we learned that it had many vibrant colors between its scales. We then later learned that without a flashlight we are unable to see many colors and they begin to turn dark grey and black as we dive deeper. After about 20 minutes of diving, we arrived between two reefs at a depth 60 ft. and we then saw a lion fish hiding in a crevice in the coral. Lion fish is an invasive species that was thrown out of their aquariums and we identified it by the spiky fins with the white and orange coloring. They use there feathery pectoral fins to lure in prey, they also use these venomous spikes as self defense as well. Soon after seeing the the lion fish we rose to the surface and went to the second dive site called rainbow reef. Immediately, when descending to a depth of 50 ft. we began to see large princess parrot fish who would swim so close to us and not be effected by us being in their surroundings. The princess parrot fish’s color was also effected buy the depth and appeared grey but we were able to identify it from the stipe on the dorsal fin. We were able to also identify the parrot fish because it was feeding on the algae. Just before ending our last dive of the day my partner and I were swimming at depth of 30 ft, we saw a large school of french grunt which we identified with there yellow body with white silvery stripe. They were swimming on rocky reefs feeding on the algae in large schools. We then ascended to the surface and got on the boat and returned to the resort. On the first two dives this trip we saw many different species of fish but these were the ones I liked the most from each.
After eating lunch and taking a nap we prepared for our Stingray City debate. After having the debate, I saw both the negatives and benefits for having stingray city. The benefits were the amount of money and jobs that it provides to the small island. It is said that 2,500 people visit daily and it cost $45 a person providing great economic growth to such a small island. The biggest negative is that people are feeding the stingrays squid which is not part of their normal diet, causing them to rely more on the visitors to feed them because of their change in diet. With the change in diet, it makes it harder for them to be able to survive in a wild ecosystem needing to adapt to a new food source. I look forward to two more reef dives tomorrow morning and visiting Stingray City tomorrow afternoon.
