Today we began our day at Doc’s cabin and had breakfast. We talked about our goal for the day once we got to the boats to meet up with Casey and the other diving instructors. We worked on our projects and ran our first series of tests. My group was responsible for observing how many kinds of fish species entered a certain area, consisting of either sand, one type of coral, two types and three types of coral. It took two dives fir my group to acquire our data. We dove near the backside of ginger island and as well as the other side of ginger island. We saw sharks, barracuda, and some squid. I learned that sharks are usually found here due to the Hugh nutrients from the open ocean flowing into the coral reef, providing beneficial nutrition for the coral. This allows the coral to be very colorful and very diverse, attracting a lot of fish. The large amount of fish attracts sharks to the area. After we had gathered our data and discussed our results with Dan, our diving instructor, we all headed to lunch and ate on the boats. After lunch we headed to salt island to view the salt baths that used to be where settlers would collect salt and sell it at market. The BVI used to export salt, encompassing much if the economy. This salt would be used to preserve meat and other goods. Many ships would stop here to purchase more salt. Since refrigeration was invented, the salt business and those who ran it went out of business and left the island. The last individual who had been a descendent of the people who harvested the salt was the last person to leave the island in 2007. We toured the island and the abandoned homes and hiked up to the top of a hill to witness the panoramic views. Today the island remains uninhabited and is a national park. Afterwards we came back to guava bay and began gathering and compiling our data into charts and began discussions over our presentations.
