Today started off very nice and relaxing, since we got to sleep in for 45 more minutes. We first went to Savannah Bay, where we snorkeled looking for different types of invertebrates. My group was able to find a rockboring urchin, a West Indian urchin, a pederson cleaning shrimp, a fire worm, and arrow crabs. The pederson cleaning shrimp was really fascinating because if you put your nails up to it, it will clean the dirt off for you. A pederson cleaning shrimp is known for using its antennas to signal to fish that it will clean them. We were told not to touch the fire worm because if you bother it, it will shot out needles that float in the water. If these needles touch your skin they can cause irritating itching. It was also really cool to see the sea urchins latch onto your arm with it’s legs. If you flip a sea urchin over, it will use its legs to flip itself back over. After lunch we went turtle tagging. We would hold onto skiing ropes off the back of our boat as it dragged us. The second we saw a turtle we would raise our hand and chase after the turtle. Tagging the turtle provides useful information on their migratory patterns. We weren’t able to tag a turtle because they were lightning fast. After turtle tagging went on the beach for dinner.
