So I think yesterday was my sisters birthday, and before I write my blog, I need to say Happy Birthday! Hope I got the day right this time, even if I was late in saying anything.
Now back to me.
Waking up this morning went way better than yesterday, since I know everyone reading was waiting to find out. But after waking up and getting all my gear together, we headed towards breakfast and another exciting day filled with boats, snorkels, and turtles. As we were finishing breakfast, a woman by the name of Doctor Gore came by and gave us an idea about turtles which included showing us how we were going to catch and collect data about the turtles. We split into two groups, one going snorkeling to look at invertebrates and the other (my group) going to give our greatest attempts at catching turtles. While the first few guys jumped into the water and started hanging onto ropes to be pulled slowly by the boat and scanning for fish, the boat started getting hit with some rain. Some incredibly icy, and needle-like rain. However, soon after the rain passed, we (and by “we”, I mean the guys in the water) spotted our first green turtle. However, the turtle also spotted us and began to swim away in an extremely quick manner. Though we quickly gave chase, the smart turtle went to deeper waters and hid inside some rocks and coral, where we could no longer track it. After returning to the boat and switching out who stayed in the water to look for turtles, we floated about behind the goat and scanned the ocean bottom for another turtle. I managed to spot one in shallow waters, and we all tried to gather around it and hopefully cut it off before it escaped. Unluckily for us, by the time we dived down with our snorkeling gear the turtle had decided that it was ready to run and left us in the dust. After a few attempts at this and one or two other turtles we ran out of time and had to head back. And I just wanted to hug a turtle. Five year old me would be so sad. However five year old me would not be able to swim, so I still win. Once we got back to dry land, we ate a lunch that reminded us of home… a cheeseburger with fries. And it was delicious. After lunch, we traded places with the other group (they were more able in their turtle hunting abilities and successfully caught a turtle) and headed to Savannah Bay to snorkel and see some invertebrates. On land, we looked at some small invertebrates including a sea slug and an egg looking, single-celled organism. We snorkeled around some coral and took note of several types of invertebrates we saw attached to the rocks. It was a fun dive and we got to relax in the shallow beach water and talked for a while before we needed to leave to shower and get ready for a delicious and filling lasagna dinner at Mad Dog’s. So today was super fun, and really exciting.
*The image below has a sea fan (I believe that is what they are called) in the middle. It may be hard to see.
