Man, I can’t believe that this trip is more than halfway over! It feels like I just arrived yesterday!
After a typical breakfast, the day took a unique turn. Instead of heading straight to the dock. A lady with the turtle conservation group down here gave us a 45 minute presentation on the origins of turtles, how endangered they are, and how to properly catch and tag them. However, we weren’t just gonna learn how to catch them, we were gonna catch them!
After the presentation, we headed to the dock where we split into two groups. The first group, the one I was in, would go turtle tagging while the other group would go search out invertebrates near a separate shore. Shortly after arriving to the dock we took off on the dive boat to a secluded shore in between two islands. Once we arrived there, we hopped in and began our search. Ironically, the only time I came near a turtle was when I wasn’t even looking for one. While swimming back to the boat I looked forward and there was a green sea turtle casually swimming right in front of me! Unfortunately, it’s casual swimming speed was my fastest swimming speed. I was able to swim directly on top of it but it was too deep to dive down and get a hand on it. Sadly, it eventually got spooked and swam off.
The second chance we got to catch turtles was when the dive boat dragged us along the ocean with ropes while we searched the surrounding areas. This time, we only came across one turtle, a hawksbill turtle, when my snorkel buddy spotted it and called it out. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t even come close to putting a hand on it. While not catching a turtle was disappointing, I must say that the experience was awesome.
After both attempts to catch turtles, we headed back to the dock for another sandwich and chips lunch. Next came a long truck ride to the beach where we would study the invertebrates. Upon arrival, we were instructed by the dive staff to search out and put certain invertebrates into a jar to bring back to the beach. After 30 minutes, we headed back where some of the dive staff had set up a table with different invertebrates. The coolest were a white-tipped sea urchin with tons of tentacles that clung itself to your hand and an octopus hiding in a large shell that would snatch up whatever you dropped into the tub it was in. At the end the staff asked me to put one of the sea urchins back into the ocean which was also a neat experience.
Next we headed back to the cabins to take an hour break then worked in the commissary on our research projects for about an hour until the dive staff came for dinner with beef and chicken wraps with rice. After dinner we watched a documentary on coral and the affects our current environment is having on it. While I know that global warming is an issue, I didn’t know how critical the problem really is. Around 29% of the Great Barrier Reef died in 2016 alone. It is also projected that in 30 years most of the coral around the world will be gone, affecting millions according to the documentary. In full honestly this video did inspire me to talk about this issue more prevalently.
Tomorrow I will snorkel a sunken ship and a coral nursery. While I am extremely excited, I am tired. Our cabin also serves breakfast tomorrow so I have to wake up extra early. Because of this I’m gonna get an early night’s rest. Until tomorrow!
