Today, we woke up and ate a great breakfast in the commissary, provided by Casey McNutt. After being briefed on what our day had planned for us we headed out to Deep Bay on the Sea Dragon with Laura, Jeff Nichols, and Casey. There, we kayaked out along the coast where we observed the geology of the mangrove forest and recorded important details that would assist the research database for possible funding for a national park based around the mangroves. After we did some observing and the occasional t-bone into Chris’ kayak as well as Christian and Jeff flipping their kayak a total of three times, my partner Killian and I snorkled around the bay where I saw a squid, stingray, and a few smaller fish. We all played a nice game of nukum and then went to Leverick Bay, where we had some sandwiches (once again provided by Casey) and then proceeded to the dive shop at that location to watch an presentation about the history and growth of coral, as well as the tectonic plate movements in the Caribbean.
Once again heading out on the boat, we arrived at Cockroach Bay. There we did a recreational dive where we tested out our new cameras. Laura’s group and I headed around the bay, taking pictures of our fellow divers and watching Alex swim around with his wooden “spear” that he made the poor choice of making a Deep Bay. He was planning to use to spear a lion fish, but, however, not to our surprise, failed miserably.
After our excursion, we went to Mad Dogs, once again, and watched another presentation on our reef progress of the coral we planted last year. Casey also demonstrated a diagram of the coral we will be planting to the Jesuit reef later this week. So, in the meantime, all we have to do is map out where we will place our cinder block bases for our coral structures.
