Starting off the day with a quick lesson about turtles, we recapped information regarding lifespan, migration patterns, and levels of endangerment of sea turtles. Despite popular belief, I learned that most sea turtles are not endangered. Some sea turtles, like the Hawksbill Turtle, are endangered in some areas, but have been deemed “least concerned” in other areas. Being in group ‘Sea Monkey’, me and my group started off at Savannah Bay searching for invertebrates. We ended up finding sea slugs, sea urchins, and even a conch shell. Amused by the spines on the urchin, Beth informed us that urchins also have tentacles that they can use to catch their food. Also, urchins have a sense of what is up and what is down and use their spines to adjust themselves. After catching and researching everything we caught, we headed to a restaurant in the middle of town to have lunch. Finally, we made our way to Lil Dix Bay to try our luck with catching sea turtles for the purpose of tagging them and/or tracing the ones that have already been tagged. Tracing turtles that have already been tagged allows researchers to see where and perhaps why turtles migrate where they do. An unproven theory is that in a turtle’s lifespan he/she returns to the beach where he/she was born. Of course this is very difficult to prove because it is nearly impossible to track a turtle from a hatchling to a full grown adult. After a disappointing day of catching no sea turtles, we returned to our cabins to shower and change. Tomorrow we take on our last two dives including a dive to a wrecked ship and a dive to a coral nursery. The coral nursery includes coral that has been individually grown in a protected area so that the coral, once grown to a reasonable size, can be placed on a harmed or damaged reef. This allows for the new coral to grow and hopefully help restore the health of the reef. Our job tomorrow is to clean and care for the coral so that it is in peak condition for transportation. Looking forward to a great rest of our trip!
