Day 5 at the BVI
What a great day it was today. Day 5 objective was to harvest and plant coral in areas where it was destroyed by weather conditions, affected by disease and where algae was growing on top of it. In the morning Glen came to pick us up and drive us the harbor where we had lunch and set up our gear for our two tank dive. We then headed out for an island in Tortola bay. When we got there we snorkeled for good locations for planting the new reef and of course looking at the marine life that inhabits there. I spotted a sea turtle and followed it for a while. After thirty to forty minute snorkel we turned back to the boat for a great lecture and presentation given by Casey about the coral we are planting and the steps that consisted with it.
The first dive purpose was mainly for identifying places where coral grew and trimming the pieces that were still healthy enough for growth. Each person in our groups had to collect two good healthy fragments of coral(staghorn or elkcorn). I collected two pieces of staghorn coral, finding the coral was preety challenging because there were not many areas left of healthy coral but when we did find them we broke the coral pieces with a weight then placing them inside a mesh bag that was brought off board.
With the new coral pieces that we had just picked up, our mission for our second dive was to zip tie our fragments and record their identification #, height and the number of points in each fragment. My buddy and I planted 3 fragments of coral in ideal locations that we thought that they would grow and successfully reproduce and stay healthy. In our dive the marine life that was new to my sight was seeing the school of squid that passed by our harvesting sight. It was interesting to see when i followed the squid their appearance changed and turned to a more light purpleish color.
Sad to say but this day was the last dives of this trip. I’m just glad it was a day where we as a Jesuit community knew that we made a positive impact the to marine ecosystems at the Island of Tortola. It’s just cool to give back to the life in the sea the same way it gives us. For instance zoozanthellae uses the sunlight to produce photosynthesis to turn it into oxygen that rises to the atmosphere and capable for humans to breathe. It was great diving with all the instructors on board and I like to give thanks to the dive masters at sea dragon(Brian and Casey) for making diving experience a great one.
