**Photo credit – Bennet @ The Baths**
We woke up this morning at 7:45 and took showers before making our way down to the cattle guard. Breakfast was again great and I was pretty full afterwards. We then had a man from the conservation and fisheries department come and talk to us about sea turtles. He outlined the different types of sea turtles as well as how to properly measure and tag them. He also gave us some local information and statistics about sea turtle migration and reproduction patterns. After his talk we went down to the dock and boarded the boat to do some turtle tagging. After the quick boat ride we began our search for turtles by snorkeling. I was one of the four people that went with Joel to tag turtles. I soon realized that it was extremely exhausting trying to chase down an animal created to swim. We finally caught a green sea turtle and brought it onto the boat. Once everyone had gathered around, Joel began recording data; measuring each part of the turtle and checking to see if it had already been tagged. The turtle had not previously been tagged so we tagged it in two places on each flipper and released it back into the water.
We then went back to the dock and had a great lunch right on the water. The view was great! After lunch we went back to the cabins to rest for a few minutes before meeting back up to walk to The Baths. The Baths are comprised of huge boulders that formed millions of years ago. We walked through them while Casey explained some of the history and geology behind them. Next, when we had gotten to the end of the baths, we put on all of our snorkel gear and snorkeled back to where we started which took about 45 minutes. It was so much fun snorkeling next to huge 20 foot boulders lined with different types of coral and beautiful fish. I saw a sing ray, a flounder, sea turtles, along with many other species of fish. When we had finished snorkeling The Baths, we went back to our cabins and showered up before dinner. We again went to Mad Dogs and the food was great.
I am looking forward to the dives tomorrow and hopefully it will be as fun as the last two days have been.
