The morning started off with an alarm on my iPhone of Apple’s “night owl” ringtone at 7:20. Immediately afterwards, I hopped out of my bed and got dressed for the snorkeling today. The plans for today was to go turtle tagging and catch invertebrates to study on land. Today, plum house was in charge of breakfast. I had a couple granola bars and some tropical juice at breakfast. After breakfast, we went down to our sort of meeting room and had a presentation from the representative that would be allowing us to tag turtles. If the representative was not there, it would be illegal to even touch the turtles let alone grab them and tag them up on the surface. From Dr. Gore’s presentation, I learned that when someone says that all sea turtles are endangered, they are not telling the whole truth. In reality, there are sub species of turtles that maybe endangered, or perfectly stable/of least concern. For example, the northern Atlantic leatherback sea turtle is categorized by the red list as of least concern, however, the central pacific leatherback is endangered. Later, the group went down and took a trip to the dock with Glen. At the dock, half of the group, not me, went on the turtle tagging trip. While the other half was out hunting for turtles, myself and the rest went to savannah bay to hunt for invertebrates. At the bay, we went out snorkeling along the very shallow waters covered in the most stressful reef I have been in. This reef was the scariest and most hyperventilating location I have placed myself in. For instance, the depth of the water was less then 24 inches and the floor was covered in sea urchins of which I now know are amazing creatures. Sea urchins have tentacles which come out and allow the creature to be able to move objects around it such as food or obstacles. Furthermore, the spines that are attached are not actually as brittle as they seem. After savannah bay we hopped on a ride with Glen to the a nice restaurant in which I had some quesadillas! After that, we walked down to the harbor onto the boat with Zoltan to go turtle tagging at lil dix bay. For the first thirty minutes, I did not see any turtles. After a while, Zoltan called us back in and threw out a towing line. We all grabbed on and got ready for the unsuspecting ride! At first, it was the most exhilarating thing, however, a good ten seconds later, I realized that the next 20 minutes would be exhausting. By the end of the tow, my hands were covered in blisters and no turtle had been seen. Zoltan then stopped the boat and told us there were some seen at the location he anchored. I then hopped out and began the energetic hunt. Again I did not see anything until I heard “turtle” screamed to the top of someone’s lung. I immediately swam over to the location, however, I did not see the turtle. Zoltan eventually called us in and took us back to the harbor. From the turtle tagging, I learned that turtles are very intelligent and are to spot because of their great speed. After the turtle tagging, we went back to our rooms for a shower and then went to the the wifi hotspot to work on our projects. For dinner we had delicious Mexican wraps and rice and then afterwards, we had mind opening discussion between the group. Tomorrow, I hope that the wreck and coral nursery dives will prove to have the most spectacular sights available.
