Today, after Andrew and I struggled for ten minutes to get Killian up, we headed down to Guavaberry’s commissary and ate a wonderful breakfast provided by Casey. As we ate this feast of yogurt and chocolate donuts, we watched Dr. Shannon Gore’s presentation on the turtles of the BVI. In this presentation we discovered that there are four different types of turtles in the BVI: Loggerhead, Leatherback, Green Turtle, and Hawksbill. (We also discovered that Leatherback Turtles look like gigantic dinosaurs)
We used the Manti Tow technique at Guana Island to try and locate and tag turtles;however, once Chris, Christian, Jeff, and I had been dragged behind the boat on a roap for 30 minutes, we decided to head to White Bay to go on a snorkeling excursion in search of some more sea turtles; once again, we were unsuccessful. Next we headed to the Rendezvous Bar and got food from the “Bath and Turtle” restaurant where we ate some amazing lava burgers and watched lizards jump down from the rafters all around us.
Following our lunch, I spread my arms out on the front of the boat like I was on the Titanic as we headed to “Jesuit Reef” at Long Bay. Here, with the help of Casey and Laura, as well as the infamous Mr. Kirby, we cataloged the coral that my boat Sea Monkey and I planted last year by writing the number of tips, the length, base width, and the tag number of the staghorn or elkhorn coral. After an hour on our one tank dive at only about 25 feet, Killian, my dive partner, and I recorded a total of 7 coral from last year, all of which showed amazing growth from the previous year. During our retrieval, we also spotted a moray eel, a mollusk, stingray, and a few sea star.
Finally, at the end of the day, we went to the Mad Dog’s Restaurant. Overall a great day in the BVI
