The third day of our trip was yet again, another fantastic day on the island. The early morning wake up call and early breakfast at mango house was a great start to the morning. We ate cereal, muffins, and honey buns. After breakfast we headed down to our boats to begin our day of dives. The two dives for the day were focused around the research project that my group of Andrew, Zach, and John have designed for the trip. The project is designed to observe the number parrotfish around an area with 80% coral cover at different depths. On the first dive, we tried to conduct our procedure but we learned that our area of observation was too big, so we had to downsize on the next dive. The second dive was a much better and smoother dive because we knew what we were doing and were familiar with measuring techniques. We were able to get 3 areas observed of parrotfish and to still have time to survey on the last dive. This dive was great as we were down for 50 minutes and it was a successful research dive. Following this dive we met up with the he other boat to have a lunch on the water. Mangrove tree snorkel followed a great lunch and served as a learning experience for all of us. On this dive we learned that the mangroves served as a protective area for juvenile fish to stay until grown enough to move on. We saw some juvenile barracuda, sea cucumbers and several yellow tail snapper. This snorkel was a cool experience because we had seen the larger versions of these fish in previous dives. To end the day we had a relaxed swim and frisbee game on the beach while enjoying a beach pork bbq dinner. The end to another fantastic day came quicker than expected and I couldn’t have asked any more of this trip.
