Today started out the same as yesterday; I woke up at 7:45, got in a taxi, and headed to the marina where we ate a light breakfast of banana bread, muffins, and Capri sun. I bought a hat for myself as well as a shirt at the gift store while we were waiting to get on the boat. We got on and took a 15 minute boat ride down to long bay where we harvested coral and replanted it in a dead patch. A part of the coral had been heavily damaged in 2005 when water temperatures got into the mid 90’s. Other factors include things such as disease and boaters carelessly dropping their anchors wherever they want. What we did is we did a snorkel where we looked for both staghorn and elkhorn coral that we could harvest for relocation. The coral had to be from the local area because you don’t want to tamper with the gene pool. You need to keep it local. The snorkel lasted about 45 minutes. The coolest thing I saw was a large group of about 20 squid. We were able to go right up to them and they would just watch us. There was also a green sea turtle that I pointed out to our group of five. After the snorkel, we geared p for our first dive of the day. Basically we led our group leader Jeff to where we had seen coral and he would break pieces off and stick it in our mesh bags. After about an hour of harvesting coral and sight seeing, we went back to the boat for lunch. I had two turkey and cheese sandwiches. After about a 30 minute surface interval, we changed out our tanks and headed in for dive two. This time we were actually reattaching the coral bits to surfaces where they would then latch on and grow. What we did was go down to a pre-designated are and zip tie the coral bits to rock and them tag them with a number so they could be tracked. This patch will end up being a Jesuit made reef. Nobody else except for the dive BVI crew will be handling the reef and that will only to monitor the growth of the coral. After about an hour of this, we headed back in where we hung out then went back to the marina. We ambled around the little shops for about 15 minutes then headed back to the cabins where I read and took a much needed nap. I woke up around 6 and headed down to the fate where we threw the frisbee for a bit them headed to mad dogs for dinner. Tonight was wraps and macaroni casserole. Since I’m not a very big fan of wraps, I just had the Mac. I then hung out, and played a game called hook ’em where you have a little hook on a string and you have to swing it so that it latches on to a little hook a few feet away. I’m getting pretty good at it, my best is two tries. I also played my first round of a game called corn hole where you have to throw bean bags at a board that is angled at about 10 degrees. The board has a hole in it that has a diameter of about 4 inches. There are two boards facing each other and two teams of two. Teammates face each other, but are also next to and opponent. I’m actually pretty good. I was able to win my first full game since I had a decent partner. I had played two games that were not really games because in one, my partner quit half way through and the other, they managed to win before I even got a shot off. I won’t one game and was barley beaten the next. After that I had a brownie sundae and went back to the cabin where I read my book and am now typing my blog. I’m going t upload it in the morning before breakfast. There’s an argument in the class as to whether or not there is a final but I don’t think there is one because it just would be fair to test us on things only mentioned in word, especially when we were told no notes were going to be taken and our class work was two weeks ago. Tomorrow I will upload this blog and go do community service. Bye. Attached is a picture of me on the boat
