Following a great night of blogging, we woke up this morning and got ready for our second to last day of diving. We ate some grub and got ready for our first dive. The first dive sight was at the shipwreck of the ex-USS Kittiwake, a 251 boat. It was commissioned from the 1940’s to the 1990’s and it was intended to be a submarine rescue vessels. However, it ironically destroyed as many submarines as it saved. When they sank the Kittiwake, it was originally standing straight up, but after a hurricane, it was knocked mostly onto its side. On this dive, we didn’t see as many fish as in the reef, but there was still a wide variety of species. My favorite species that I saw on this dive was a barracuda. It was pretty easy to identify because of its long, skinny, silver body, forked tail, large eyes, and its mouth full of razor sharp teeth. It isn’t very afraid of humans, so it stalked me for a little bit, which kind of creeped me out. Barracudas are predators that feed on smaller reef fish mostly. The second dive was at a location called Doc Poulsen. This dive site was at another ship wreck, a 90 foot boat that was sunk in the 1970’s. It was named after the first doctor in the island, who was renowned for giving all the dive masters free medical examinations. The boat was totally covered in coral growth and algae. I saw lots of fish living on and in the boat. We also saw around ten conchs crawling around in the sand near the shipwreck. Conchs are large mollusks that live inside of a spiral shell. They use their muscles to stick to objects or sand and slide around. Conchs are herbivores that eat algae and other small marine plants. They are a very popular prey among larger predators, as they are somewhat vulnerable to be snatched up and sucked out of their shell since they are very slow. After the dives, we ate, swam, and then went to our beach cleanup. Despite the extreme heat, it was a fun experience, especially knowing that we helped make a difference. Thousands of marine animals die from the trash that we leave out each year, so it felt good to help potentially save the animals that we love to see while diving. After that, we came back and swam some more. We then ate dinner, reviewed over our prayer service for tomorrow, and got ready for bed. Tomorrow we have two more dives before we leave on Saturday.
