Today at 7:15 Mango Cabin served breakfast that consisted of cereal, bagels, and muffins before heading down to the lounge to listen to a presentation on sea turtles by Dr. Gore. The presentation taught us about the turtles in the local area before the sea monkey and sea dragon split up to actually go and catch turtles. The boat I was on, the Sea Monkey, was the first group to go out to the bay to catch turtles. We had a short boat ride out before we put on our snorkel gear and jumped in. We split up into groups so some people can distract the turtles while someone else goes down and grabs it, my group was me, Henry, and Will. We originally all jumped out of the boat and started snorkeling around to find turtles. This sounded like a good idea on the boat but when we got in the water it was very unsuccessful, we swam around for what seemed like an hour and saw nothing but fish and the occasional stingray. With every group empty handed, Dr. Gore and Beth decided to have everyone get back on the boat. We drove around until we saw a turtle from the boat and then everyone jumped in after it. After a few minutes of driving someone saw a turtle so we all put on our snorkel gear and dove in. Me, Killian, Will, Jim, and a few others had cornered a turtle and were waiting for the right time to go down and grab it and then Killian did it, he successfully grabbed a turtle. There was a frenzy as it splashed and kicked up sand but when everything settled Killian was at the surface holding a turtle. We brought the turtle back to the boat and Dr. Gore took measurements and we realized that we had caught the turtle that had been caught last week. Though we didn’t catch a new turtle it was still and amazing experience. Everybody got back on the boat and Ben drove us back to the yacht harbor where we met up with Sea Dragon and ate lunch at the dive restaurant. After lunch the groups split up again and now my group drove to Savannah Bay to study invertebrates with Casey. Beth and Casey had gathered a multitude of coral and animals including starfish, fire worms, lettuce slugs, and sea urchins and then handed the non-dangerous ones to us. We learned about their diet and habitat before releasing them back into the ocean, after the lesson we had an hour to snorkel around in the ocean and look at the wildlife. While snorkeling Henry, Trip, and I found a few squid hanging out by a shallow reef and we watched them as they swam around the coral. When the hour of snorkeling was up Glen came and picked us up and we drove back, picked up Sea Dragon, then headed back to Guavaberry to shower before the beach games started. The games were cabin vs cabin and consisted of a relay race, drawing competition, water ballon fight, and an obstacle course. My house, Plum Cabin, came in second to Lime Cabin, the winners got. $50 gift card to the gift shop. We ate lasagna for dinner and then headed back to our cabins to shower and do our blogs. After today I can’t wait to do more dives and hopefully see more sea turtles.
