Today was a fairly big day. We started with breakfast at the commissary again and listen to a great presentation from our friend, Dr. Shannon Gore. Dr.Gore’s presentation focused on the different species of turtles found in the BVIs and there life cycles. Apparently loggerheads have five scutes on the back rather than the typical four and leather backs don’t have an actual fully developed shell. After the presentation we rode Glenn’s taxi to the marina and headed to Guana Island to hunt for some turtles to tag and record into the national database. The method we used to locate the turtle was called Manti Tow. Manti Tow is where you drag snorkelers along by a boat and rope and they scour the ocean floor for turtles. Sadly we did not find any turtles and I cried. Instead we found hundreds of sea urchins and trumpet fish at White Bay, while curry was still trying to kill something. If we did find a turtle we would have injected a grain sized chip into it to track its migration patterns like a dog chip and give it two earring looking clips on its flippers. We then boarded the boat and headed to have a delicious cheeseburger lunch at the restaurant Bath and Turtle. After lunch we boarded back on the boat and headed to Long Bay to check on the Jesuit Reef that we personal planted last year. The growth results were nice except for some bleaching and some algae growth. Another devastation was the anchor damage to the coral habitats. We recorded the growth and took pictures of the surviving coral. Then we boarded the boat and went home to shower for another Mad Dog’s dinner. The dinner was lasagna and salad and we were greeted by a wandering island dog named Humpy who tried to fight Casey’s dog daisy. After dinner I finished of the night with an interesting conversation with Julian, Killian, Matt, Alex, and our dive instructor Caitlyn. Caitlyn had a whole bunch of knowledge to drop on us and it was one of the most enthralling talks I’ve had on this trip.
Thank you to Casey, Jeff, Jeff, Caitlyn, and Laura for another amazing day!!!!!!
Andrew
