Today’s dives consisted of two ship wreck dives which I was very excited for. Our first shipwreck was the USS Kittiwake, the Kittiwake was a former submarine rescue vessel that was in commission for 49 years from 1945 to 1994. Some famous feats of the boat include recovering the flight recordings from Challenger Space Shuttle’s blackbox and intercepting Buzz Aldrin after his missions in space. As we descended towards the Kittiwake I was amazed by how big it was, I had imagined it to be a small rescue vessel but it was in fact a 76 meter giant. When I reached the bottom the first thing I noticed where these small nest made of some rusted pieces of metal and dead corral, the fish that would surround them where long and thin and a milky white with blue fins on there back and underside. Whenever you would get within a foot our so to the fish they would quickly dart into there nest. I found it really interesting to find out that there where species of fish that built nest as I had not idea that any fish did, these particular fish where called sand tilefish. While still at the sandy bottom approaching the Kittiwake I noticed all the garden eels that would wade out of there small holes in the sand and whenever we would swim near them they would quickly dart back into them similar to the tilefish. Navigating through the ship was a lot of fun and there where bits of fire coral here and there that we needed to watch out for but other than that it was cool to see all the juvenile fish that found shelter in the ship. Our second dive was a much smaller ship near a reef, when I got in the water I noticed that a classmates camera was falling to the bottom as I descended to reach it a school of yellowtail snapper chased after it probably assuming it was food. I watched the school of snapper for a bit they constantly remained circling under the boat and I noticed that they probably learned that over the years fishing boats would dump waist making a easy meal kind of like the rays of stingray city. While we explored the reefs Lucy, our dive master pointed out some small sea anemone where some small cleaner shrimp where seeking protection. The shipwreck was much smaller but had a lot more biodiversity surrounding it as it had been sunk for much longer allowing for more coral and algae to grow upon it, like the Kittiwake there where a lot of juvenile fish surrounding it. A funny thing I saw while diving near the wreck was the ships toilet mostly intact sitting in the sand. on are way back Grayson and I saw a couple of upside down jellyfish which as there thoughtful name implies look like upside down jelly fish, they remained stagnant in the sand as we circled them and i was happy to see a jelly fish while on the trip. After returning from the dives we went to our beach clean up, the clean up was fun as it became somewhat of a competition. Lee and I where able to find the weirdest piece of trash, a toy mouse head among other stuff. The clean up was fun as well but at the same time it showed the impact of population at there was only so much we could pick up and some plastic shattered to bits as they baked in the sun making it much harder to pick up. It hard to think that the trip is almost over but is has been one of the best experiences ever and I’m very glad I was able to go on it.
