Once again, we started our day all together eating a buffet style breakfast. We then started to gather our supplies and boarded the boat to go to our first dive. After about 20 minutes on the boat, we arrived at our first dive site “Big Tunnels”. With the help of the two instructors, my partner, Nico Boyd, and I jumped into the water excited to go deep and explore.
With our dive time being around 30 minutes, we reached a maximum depth of 96 feet. So far, it has been my favorite dive as we got to scuba right through a big vertical tunnel full of life. Additionally, on the dive, I saw a moderate size fish with big eyes and a robust body by the name of Nassau Grouper. Luckily, we viewed the Nassau Grouper at the perfect time as it was getting its mouth cleaned. The grouper opened its mouth in a non-threatening way, allowing the cleaner fish to enter the mouth to remove parasites. Currently, this type of fish is considered a threatened species throughout the world as a result of overfishing. Additionally, throughout the dive I came across a fish by the name Spot-fin Butterflyfish. The spot-fin butterflyfish has a disk-like body and is very fast moving. The name of the fish derives from the dark spot on the dorsal fine. With the spot, and the black line through the eye, the fish contains such an adaptation that can confuse predators. They are diurnal animals which means they feed during the day and rest in the coral during the night. Their diet consists of feeding on small invertebrates, coral polyps, planktons, and sometimes algae.
Once out of the water, we took time to decompress our bodies and moved to the next dive site. We shortly arrived at a place by the name “Bonnie’s Arch”. At just around 60 feet, the site is famous for a physical arch in the water which is full life. During this dive, I reached a maximum depth of 65ft and was in the water for 41 minutes. With the instructor, we got to swim through the arch and view all the fish living in and on it. Surrounding the rim of the arch, Royal Gramma Basslet is a planktivore whose diet consists of mostly zooplankton and crustaceans. This fish was half yellow on the tail side with a all blue head. Additionally, this type of fish is a cleaner fish that removes the ectoparasites (skin parasites on a fish) from other fish. They were in a big group all together and did not move far from the arch. Then later on in the dive, we caught in the corner of our eyes laying on the ocean floor, a lifeless giant crab. It was roughly the size of a football; however, we concluded that it was dead as one arm was cut off and appeared as if other fish were feeding off of the body. It was hidden in with all the rocks and coral surrounding it, yet the long claws and big body made it stand out from everything else.
