Today after getting ready and eating breakfast the Sea Monkey headed out to get to work on Day1 of projects. My group of Jack Lynch, Cooper Marshall, Luke Gomez, and me set out to find how fish react to different colors. We were setting out three different color shirts with food on them and seeing which color shirt they would go after. I learned that the fish seemed to be more attracted to no color and I am excited to see the results put together and continue getting to work on this project. Next, we got to go work on the coral tree nursery that Casey and Jeff have built with their team. It was amazing to see how they build these nurseries where the coral can thrive when previously they had trouble surviving. They use the tree nursery form because Casey said it worked better than doing a sideway nursery and the results were looking good. Jack and I were teamed up and we had to hand clean a tree of coral. This was a good experience because I got to witness how algae and other things destroy and invade coral. Next, we had lunch on the boat and got to visit a salt pond. I had never heard of a salt pond but basically they are near oceans and cliffs and collect sediment and prevent them from entering the ocean. They are known as buffer zones because the sediment gets turned to salt and it piles together forming a pond. It was like a humongous pile of salt and Jackson Suarez told me the salt tasted way to “salty”. After we rested for a little we had a nice cookout on the beach where we embarked on our night dive. It was incredible to be in the water at night time to see all the animals out at night. I saw my first octopus and my first shark. Those were the coolest things I saw but the most amazing was when we turned our flashlights off and the bioilluminecent organisms could be seen. The night dive was amazing to see and probably my favorite part of the day. I look forward to tomorrow to get two dives in and explore the ocean some more.
