Today our cabin, tamarind, made breakfast for everyone. My roommate Miles made eggs for everyone while I set up the tables and and out food on them. We usually don’t get to have eggs for breakfast but Miles used his conversary money to buy some. After breakfast we headed to the marina and prepared for our two dives at the Rhone. We took a about a 40 minute boat ride out to salt island and then got to hear the story of about the Rhone. The story is kind of like the titanic because it was a luxurious crew ship that was in a storm and hit a rock causing them to sink to the bottom. Only one passenger survived the wreck but all the crew did except the captain. The captain didn’t survive because he was on the deck and got washed away by a rogue wave. The reason all but one of the passengers didn’t survive was because when a storm hit, the crew strapped all the passengers to the bed so they wouldn’t stand up and maybe break a bone. So they drowned strapped to their beds, unable to move. After the crash the salt islanders collected the valuables that we on the ship. The islanders were afraid of bad juju if they kept the items they had taken, so they sent them back and addressed them to the queen of England. The queen was so astonished of there politeness and told them they never had to pay taxes as long as each one of them sent a 1 pound bag of salt to England. Salt island was loaded with salt mines so this helped. To this day there is still one salt islander descendent left and he lives on Virgin Gorda. He still does not have to pay taxes and sends his bag of salt each year. The dive at Rhone was probably my second favorite. We saw two huge French angelfish and Cuban snapper, and we also got to explore the Rhone. We did two dives on the Rhone, on our first dive we explored the bow and mid section of the boat and on our second dive we explored the stern section. It was really cool to see a boat that old and the features that it had especially the 100% bronze propeller. The only reason I wouldn’t say this dive was the best dive is because I really like diving with sharks cause they are fun to watch. After our two dives at the Rhone we went to cooper island and had some amazing fish and chips. After fish and chips we got to eat gelato at an ice cream place and relax on the beach for about an hour. After lunch we got on the boat and drove to the pint of cooper island. At the point we snorkeled and saw 3 different types of sea turtles, and eagle Ray and southern sting ray. This environment was different than others we had been to before because it had a ton of sea grass. Sea grass is major part of the ocean eco system because it provides food and shelter for many different species of marine life including turtles, sea horses, juvenile fish and stingrays. Sea grass has become endangered recently due to various things like boats and construction. Many people have figured out the importance of this sea grass for various species and have stopped much of the damage caused to them which is good. After our day on the ocean we headed back to resort and discussed our projects with our groups. We used our data and observations to make conclusions on our research project. What we found is that the brightness of a fishes color doesn’t really have to do with the light it is getting. So we split our project into separate colors, we saw more red, blue and brown fish in either deeper depths, covered areas, or at night. While most of the other colors were out during the day in sunlight. After we put our final touches on our project we went to dinner at the beach and had wraps. I can’t wait to go see turtle tagging tomorrow and learn about the impact sea turtles have on the ocean ecosystem. Everyone from last year said its really fun but very hard.
