Today we spent a lot of time working on our projects. Our first dive involved us observing a very healthy reef, where we saw some very territorial schooling sergeant majors. We then went to a less healthier reef on our second dive, where we saw a lot of tiny yellow wrass. What we noticed in this project was that in a more healthier reef you are more likely to find more herbivores and biodiversity, less algae and coral bleaching, and the fish in greater sizes. Our first dive took place in West Dog. It is named West Dog because there are a lot of dive sites named with “dog” such as George Dog, and West Dog was the farthest west from these “dog” sites. The second dive was by the JCP Marine Protect Area where we observed coral being cleaned on these tree like structures underneath the water. After our very last dive we ate lunch and visited a salt pond. It was very muddy and was filled with snail and crab shells. This pond was near Savannah Cay which has very nice beach houses buy it. One is owned by the owner of Bicardi and the other is owned by Taylor Swift. We then went back to our cabins to prepare for our presentations. At first I was giving a really great introduction to our project until all of a sudden I choked and said that corals are plants. This is completely wrong and I don’t know why I said this. Corals have plant characteristics but by nature they are animals. They release carbon dioxide. They have a symbiotic relationship with algae known as zooxanthellane which involves the algae giving it oxygen, and the coral giving it carbon dioxide. We then had dinner where I got to witness Matt Anderson conduct a very accurate and theatrical impersonation of a green turtle laying eggs on the shore.
