Day 3: woke up today at 6:35 and headed to mango house for breakfast. I ate Apple Jacks and grapes, a classic, and got ready for the sea turtle presentation in the commissary/ media room. After the presentation on the catch and release tactics on sea turtles, my group headed back to the lime house to get ready for the boat ride to Savannah bay to catch the sea critter invertebrates. We arrived at Savannah bay and were welcomed with two clear plastic boxes filled with different invertebrate critters. The first critter we saw were the lettuce Snails that Casey found on the reef. They resembled pieces of algae that had small snail heads and blended in with the coral. The second critters we saw were the sea urchins, Marcelo, Ryan and I noticed them all over the reef. The next invertebrate that was shown was the starfish that was attached to the piece of coral, then finally the fire worm which was the most dangerous out of the group. The fire worm would shoot out little hairs that would eject into people’s skin and irritate. After we snorkeled around for an hour we got back in the truck and left for lunch at the yatch club. After eating a good shrimp and crab lettuce wrap, the sea dragon got ready for our Turtle catching adventure. Our group boarded the boat and headed to the sea turtle beach to catch and tag some wild turts. We got to the beach and immediately spotted a turtle and in response half of the group jumped in after to catch it. Me along w four other guys jumped in to chase after a group that spotted a turtle. After about 2 hours of unsuccessful close attempts, we came up empty handed. Then off in the distance one of the dive masters called out that he saw a turtle and everyone swam after to surround it and hopefully catch it. Dan the instructor came out of the water with an angry turtle flapping and splashing the water and brought it into the boat to get tagged and measured. Soon after, we left the bay for guava berry. Later that day when we got back to the beach we got ready for the team cabin games. Lime tree, the stacked MVP’s of the group, was myself, Daniel, Barrett, Marcelo and Garrett. We dominated the games while remaining completely humble even though we destroyed the rest of the cabins. We sniped first place and got free dive BVI hats and 50$ gift cards each. It was a good day. Tomorrow I look forward for getting farther ahead on our research projects and exploring new dive sites.
