This morning was nice. We started the day off by attending breakfast, hosted by the teachers at the Hibiscus Cabin. We had a nice smooth ride out to Copper Island. During our ride out I learned that the BVI reefs had one of my favorite marine organisms, the Christmas Tree Worm. After a quick safety talk and project briefing, we jumped into the cold ocean. During our dive our group failed to find any Elk Horn Coral, but did see a 5 foot Nurse Shark, a massive lobster, a sea biscuit, and my favorite, Christmas Tree Worms. Instead of being like the other groups, spending their surface interval swimming and relaxing, we decided to scout out some Elk Horn Coral to help save some air during our dive. Instead of finding our coral at deep level, we found it at a foot below the surface and 5 feet. With these shallow depths it allowed us to free dive for our project and save our tanks of air for a fun dive. After our nice fun dive we had a quick lunch with some cannonball and belly flop contest, we speeded over to Salt Island. Salt Island was once a salt mine and was inhabited till 2007 when the last resident was buried by the house. It is also home to a mass grave for the bodies of the victims of the RMS Rhone wreck. Our Jesuit group took a quick hike to the top of the ridge that encompassed the island. At the top we saw spectacular view of the neighboring islands and the large catamarans that moor around them. Once back at Guavaberry, we ran the test on the water samples we had gathered during our snorkeling and diving. I was happy to learn more about the Christmas Tree Worms on the boat trip out from Beth, she taught me that they are related to the feather duster worms. I can’t wait tomorrow for our turtle tagging challenge.
