Man oh man was this morning early. I’m almost sure I didn’t sleep more than a few minutes.
Anyway, after a nice breakfast and a very well done presentation from Dr. Shannon Gore on sea turtles, we packed up and headed out to try and tag some ourselves. In the presentation Dr. Gore mentioned how over time sea turtles have gone from huge land based mammals to relatively smaller marine animals because of human intervention, and it was evident in the pictures we saw.
Using a method called manta tow, where snorkelers are dragged behind a boat while scanning the ocean floor for sea turtles, we began our search for the prehistoric creatures of the deep in a bay around an island called Guana Island, named for the Iguana-like rock formation on a mountain.
About 2 hours later we decided it best that after seeing and tagging none, we would sail for more fruitful waters in hopes of finding a few. But much like the weather, the outlook was dim and waters freezing cold. The way over we were literally pelted with freezing water.
Once there we snorkeled for about 20 minutes and called it a day on the turtle tagging. Unfortunately we didn’t see a single turtle, but we did have a load of fun while seeing a huge area of marine environment.
Soon enough we found ourselves enjoying a fantastic burger and raring to go on our dive later that afternoon.
After boarding the boat, sunscreen-ing up and getting our dive brief from Casey, Buck and I were under the surface venturing back to last year and the coral transportation we did. Searching through a ton of corals we were able to locate, record, measure and photograph around 10 acropora corals that we had relocated last year.
Once we both decided we were ready to head back to the boat, we ascended and snapped some pictures of the amazing scenery and hung out on the boat. Just some dive buddy bonding.
After a shower and little down time, we walked to another dinner at Maddogs where we had a great talk with Jeff Mcnutt about diving all over the world.
A big shoutout to Dr. Shannon Gore, thank you very much for the awesome presentation.
Picture One: Buck Lyon just looking at some corals
Picture Two: Coach Nevitt and I kayaking on day two
