Being the last day we were allowed to scuba dive, we went on two special dives. On the first dive, we visited the Kodiac Queen, a ship that had been sunken in the BVI. I learned that the Kodiac Queen was actually one of the few surviving ships during Pearl Harbor and it eventually made its way to the BVI. The reason the Queen was placed underwater on purpose was for two reasons. First, it acted as a great tourist attraction in that, before the ship was placed, an artist was asked to design a giant octopus to create the illusion that the ship had been actually wrecked. Second, the ship acts as a place for coral to be artificially grown. It is a hard surface that coral can easily attach to and it provides excellent hiding spaces for primary and secondary consumers from apex predators. On the second dive, we were tasked with cleaning coral nursery trees, tress made from PVC pipes for the purpose of hanging and growing coral in a remote and protected area. The trees were in need of cleaning because if the algae or other invasive coral reached the stag horn coral being grown, then the stag horn coral would not be able to survive. The importance of the survival of the stag horn coral lies in the fact that once the stag horn coral is transported to a damaged or decaying reef, it may be able to revive and restore the health of the reef. Once we cleaned the reef, we made our way to the mangroves where we had lunch and jumped off the boats into the water. Although not participating in the snorkeling adventure of the mangroves, I learned that mangroves are important because they keep the dirt on the surface in place during storms and stops erosion. Also, it protects from salt and other things from soaking into the soil on the surface. After a long and tiring day, we settled down and had a nice dinner. I’m looking forward to the service we are doing tomorrow with the local high school; however, I’m a bit nervous about presenting our final project.
