On our second day in the BVI, I was once again awoken by the all natural sound of a crowing rooster in the morning. We then moved down to the front of the property to catch our ride to breakfast at the marina. After we all finished breakfast we moved onto to the boat to start our dives for the day. We geared up and entered the water at the first location, the Chimney, after being briefed on the underwater topography of the location. While we were descending to the Chimney my dive partner, Sean, and I saw a multitude of different types of fish. There was a large wall of rock covered in coral that held many fish including damsels, fairy basslets, parrot fish, angel fish, and yellow tail snappers. We then started the dive through the crevice in the rocks which at some places got pretty tight to swim through it. In the Chimney, Sean and I saw many damsels, shrimps, and lobsters, which were hiding in small holes in the massive wall of rock that we were swimming through. Once on the other side, we were swimming by a large group of coral and rocks when a nurse shark swam out, the second one we’ve seen on the trip. This dive we documented all of the fish we saw, which helped me learn more about all the different types of fish that inhabit this area. I was able to apply my knowledge learned in the class room out in the open ocean. After we wrapped up this dive we moved onto the second, which was Paul’s grotto. On this dive we were able to go down to around 60 ft deep after following a small drop of. While down at this depth we saw a barracuda, which is something I had been looking forward to seeing since we got here. We then started heading back to the boat, when Sean and I saw a brown trumpet fish swimming along the bottom. After this dive, we went to lunch and then headed to the beach to snorkel. We snorkeled around a reef for a short while, where we saw varying species of fish and sea urchins, before heading to Savannah Bay for a lesson on invertebrates, including sea stars, sea urchins and sea slugs. While on the snorkel, Sean and I would try and find new species we have yet to see to expand our knowledge base for later dives. We were able to see tangs and butterflyfish along with some sergeant majors. Once on the beach, we gathered around a few containers holding the invertebrates. We learned many things about the creatures such as how sea stars are split up into five sections like the urchins, how sea urchins release all there sex cells when they feel the end of their life coming on, how on the flamingo tongue snail its coloring is retractable, and how hermit crabs use shells made by snails and continue to find bigger shells as they grow. At the end of the day I was exhausted but still am excited about all of the new things I’ve learned during the day!
