Are early morning started with our first dive being a good ways from the resort. When we arrived at the site Lee, our dive master drew up what the terrain below would look like on a small black board as he would usually do before every dive. The reef below was like a series of towers with canyons and caves in between. This dive would end up being our deepest dive, reaching well around 100 feet in depth. On the way down the towers, we found a lion fish hiding underneath some coral the fish appeared to be black and white while we where down at about 70 ft but this occurs because red, more specifically red light doesn’t reach at a certain depth which is why the lion fish appear black, as we descended deeper into he cave systems I saw some very large grouper, grouper are fish with extremely large mounts and they are able to swallow prey whole , lion fish actually do the same thing on a much smaller scale as well. As we navigated the cave systems I reached a point to narrow for me to be able to fit through so I decided to ascend up and out of the canyon, as I ascend I saw a very large great barracuda swim past. Too focused on the very large and reasonably menacing fish I didn’t notice the large outcrop of coral slightly behind my head, as I ascend into it my hand grazed it causes a minor scrape on my finger, my finger began to bleed but as I stated previously red light doesn’t reach as deep as we where and so he blood that came out of my finger appeared a greenish-grey. As the dive neared an end I ventured out a little more into the open water and I saw some my classmates swim after something when I caught up with them I disconcerted it was a turtle. I was extremely exited because on a previous dive there had been a turtle but I was not able to see it, I swam near the turtle for quite a while as it glided through the water, as it made nonchalant eye contact it continued out into the blue. The turtle was a hawksbill turtle a pretty distinguishable turtle as they have hooked “beaks” and and teardrop shaped shell which is jagged toward its end. Our second dive of the day was a pretty shallow one in order to compensate for the deep dive earlier, I didn’t see much on this dive apart from another lion fish but it was still a lot of fun and since the dive was much shallower the lionfish actually appears the crimson color they are. After heading back to the resort for lunch we headed out to stingray city. Stingray city was an extremely shallow dive the maximum depth only being 15 feet. As we descended we formed a circle as our dive master Lee would lead the stingray around feeding them with squid, as they where being fed it allowed us to interact with them, the interaction is simply allowing the stingray to glide under your hand but it was still a lot of fun. The stingrays have a mucus that covers the upper portion of their body making them very slimy while their underside’s are very soft down the middle of the stung raw you where able to feel it’s rigid snide as well. I really enjoyed stingray city but I can see why there is controversy on it, the other stingray city which occurs on a sandbar is very crowded and I can see how it could bring harm to both stingray and people but the dive sight was nice and I think as long as you respect the rays it’s a good place to see what their are like. After returning from stingray city, we relaxed and had dinner then we had movie night where we watched the movie Mission Blue which entails the work of Sylvia Earle and extremely impactful person in basically all things ocean to say the least, my main take away besides the obvious impact we as people have on the ocean was the scenes of dead coral they appear as underwater graveyard’s the sand and dead corral look like bones and it is the exact opposite of the vibrant coral reefs we see pictures of. I think the documentary is a great way to show people the importance of the ocean, and overall it was a good film.
