Fifth day in the Cayman Islands is complete! Fun day if dives followed by a relaxed afternoon. We had another really deep dive to around 100 feet again today and it was super fun. We went through a big tunnel and it was super cool to see the variety of coral within it. On this dive, I saw my first turtle in the open ocean! It was a hawksbill turtle, the type that most people have been seeing on this trip already. I was excited though because I had not gotten to see any turtle yet. I could tell that it was a hawksbill because of its beak shaped mouth, which is where it gets it name from, and the slight spines on the edges of its shell. Hawksbills are actually very crucial to the health of the reef. I learned that their diet consists heavily, almost exclusively, sponges. by consuming these sponges, the turtles help the reef grow by clearing them out and allow for fish to easily feed off of the reefs. Without these turtles, the reefs tha we are sseing everyday would not be as prominent as they are. This sort of puts into perspective one example out of many of the importance of conserving these beautiful animals.
This second deep dive got me thinking about the of the air we breathe underwater. I remembered something about nitrogen narcosis when I was completing my diving certification. Thankfully, I have not experienced it before on either of these deep dives, but I wanted to become aware of it, just in case. The air we breathebhas a large portion of nitrogen in it, and this nitrogen, at high ambient pressures, leads to narcosis. This is due to the nitrogen dissolving into a divers blood through the lungs. Later, the brain becomes affected and causes a decrease in focus and mental capacity. People who dive over 100 feet may experience nitrogen narcosis and they may have symptoms anywhere from mildly impaired reasoning to hallucinations and even blacking out. Thankfully, our dives have been only to around 100 feet, so it has not been a problem. The day then continued very relaxed without eny events after lunch. It was a good time to get some rest after the dives from this morning. Cannot wait for the shipwreck dives tomorrow!
