Today was another long day but we got to sleep in a little and go to bed pretty early. My day started with waking up and preparing breakfast for my other cabin mates which consisted of cereal, nature bars, and honey buns. After preparing breakfast we ate and then took our taxi down to the dock where we loaded up the boats and headed out to sea. Our first dive was off the coast of Ginger Island, and it was called Ginger’s Backside. This dive was the first of our project dives, where we collect information about our topic that we picked during the class. My group is researching about if parrotfish visit cleaning stations more than other fish. A cleaning station is when smaller fish or shrimp pick parasites and other harmful organisms off of bigger fish. On this dive we saw two cleaning stations, a goby cleaning station and a shrimp cleaning station. At the goby cleaning station there wasn’t much action, but at the shrimp cleaning station they were many fish that stopped to get cleaned. Some of the fish even opened their mouth and let the shrimp clean inside there. It was incredible to watch the different organisms interact under the water in such a close proximity. On our second dive we continued to monitor cleaning stations at a dive site called Cistern Point. However, we also saw loads of interesting wildlife such as octopi and sting rays. While monitoring the cleaning stations we noticed how the parrotfish postured themselves upward and also kept their mouth open to be cleaned. After our two morning dives we had lunch and then went up the the Baths, which is a national park in the BVI. The baths were extremely beautiful and the water was cold which was very refreshing after a hot walk there. From the baths we snorkeled all the way back to the resort beach which was actually a good workout. Later that night we had spaghetti and meatballs and then played ultimate frisbee on the beach. Today was a great day.
