This morning I woke up early and made eggs for everyone. Everyone enjoyed the break from the usual cereal and fruit bars. After breakfast we went to the marina and I hopped on the Sea dragon with Gaz and we set off for the ship wreck. Once we got there we had a really long briefing before finally getting in. The wreck was awesome and we saw tons of different fish. We saw barracuda, stingray, dog snapper, and moray eels. The actual wreck was really cool because you could swim through the hull. The boat is a little different that boats of its time because it was made of metal, thus deemed unsinkable. However a storm, along with some extrenuating circumstances including the captain being washed overboard ended in the sinking of the ship. A dense coral garden has grown all around the site providing a habitat for marine life amongst a desolate area. After our first dive wrapped up we went up and talked about the history of the boat and switched our gear over to a fresh tank then headed back down to the second half of the boat. On the second half we saw a giant school of tiny fish swimming through the tunnel that we were in we were surrounded for a little bit and it was amazing. We saw giant lobsters also and arrow crabs. Arrow crabs are little crabs with really long legs and a tiny bodily the look like daddy long leg spiders. We finished up that dive and headed to the surface. We then went to cooper island to eat the legendary fish and chips. I sat next to Gaz at the restaurant and he told us all about his life story. After we are we went and got ice cream then played hacky sack on the beach. A sea grass bed grows perpendicular to cooper island so we snorkeled over to the garden and looked for turtles and sea horses. The rest of the day after that was spent working on our projects and going to dinner at the beach where we had Mexican food. Tomorrow we will be tagging turtles and doing an invertebrate study.
Day 6
This morning we ate at lime tree house and then headed down to the marina where one group went out with Gaz and the sea turtle expert and another group went to savanna beach to catch and study invertebrates. I was on the group that went to the beach and when we got there Casey emerged from the water holding sea urchins. We then went out to this really shallow reef where with the help of Casey and Becka caught more urchins, slugs and shrimp. We brought them back to the beach in buckets then talked about how cool and important they are. After our study we ate sandwiches on the beach and then headed to the marina to get on the turtle catching boat with Gaz. When we got there Cooper was boasting about being the only one who caught a turtle and Bobby was attempting to trick Brock into holding the line of the ski rope instead of the handle, big mistake. The way we find these turtles is 5 people get in the water with four ski ropes one person has to hold the line instead of the handle, then Gaz drags the five through the ocean with their snorkel gear on as they watch to see if they see a turtle. The only problem was one, there were tons of jelly fish stinging you as you were dragged through the water and two it felt like we were going so fast in the water and your snorkel would lay back behind you because of the water rushing by that you would be inhaling sea water. Any way our boat didn’t catch in turtles and we all got stung to death by jellyfish. We then went back and showered up and presented our projects to not only the teachers but also the dive staff. Our presentations too about 10 minutes and they all seemed ok. We went to the beach for dinner and had pizza then the usual public humiliation. Public humiliation is usually in the form of impersonation of a dive staff member and you have to do an acceptable one to earn back whatever belonging you left behind and someone else saved. So far it has been a wonderful trip and tomorrow we clean the beach for service.
