A rise around 8:00 in the morning was a gift and we all needed it. We then headed to breakfast at the teachers cabin where we had homemade bread and other snacks. After, we went to the marina and met Joel, the turtle man, who explained to us the how the tagging of turtles worked. Some of the key points including where to grab the turtle (on the top and bottom of the shell) and the long process of tagging them. We headed out to the site and hopped into the water. The idea was we would hold onto the rope being dragged behind the boat and spot turtles that we saw. Someone would always be a spotter if the turtle was found. I spotted both turtles and one of them was the only one we got and tagged. We put a chip and two tags on the turtle’s front flippers and did a few other things like measuring the shell and looking for any major damage. We ended up naming him Crush and then released him. After releasing the turtle, we headed back to the marina to go to Savannah Bay. It was a short drive over there and we were scheduled to eat lunch and explore sea invertebrates. We saw conk, crab, snails, and a fire worm in the tanks. My favorite was the conk because it was constantly moving and had some nice colors on it. After exploring the tanks, we headed out for a quick snorkel on the shallow reefs. I saw a few different kinds of fish including Fairy Basslets and lizard fish. The snorkel wrapped up fairly quick and we went up to the beach to play ultimate frisbee. Our ride arrived, so we headed back to the cabins to clean up for dinner. We met at the cattle guards around 6:15 and walked the quarter mile to the baths for dinner. There was a nice sunset and we got some good photos of the group. After dinner, we got to see our under water camera in action and other videos of the coral replantation project. We are all looking forward to seeing our reef and camera tomorrow and diving our last two dives at Virgin Gorda.
