The fifth day of our riveting Caribbean expedition began at the Alamander house for breakfast. The occupants of the house did a commendable job of serving breakfast, despite not having been provided with essential supplies such as cups and trash bags. The meal was composed of the same basic ingredients as the previous few days, but today I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to try a honey bun for the first time in my life. This experience was underwhelming, in spite of my high expectations, which pretty much sums up the rest of the day as well. Our first dive took place at the wreck of the Kodiak Queen, a freighter that survived the attack on Pearl Harbor. The divemasters apparently chose this site over the wreck of the RMS Rhone, which we dove on last year and enjoyed tremendously. Needless to say, I was not a fan of this choice. The Kodiak Queen had only been underwater for a few months, and as a result no coral had grown on the structure. This in turn meant that very few notable fish were present at the site, whereas interesting sights were abundant on the Rhone. The dive concluded after about 40 thoroughly uninspiring minutes, which yielded little more than a hogfish, a Nassau grouper, and a few arrow crabs. The second dive took place at a coral nursery not far from where we conducted the invertebrate snorkel yesterday. The divemasters told us that we would be cleaning the structures that held the growing coral heads, as they had been severely affected by fire coral and parasites. At first, nobody thought much of it, but once we reached the nursery, the reality of the situation introduced to us in last night's documentary began to set in. The coral heads were, to be blunt, in terrible shape. Fire coral and clams were all over the structures, the individual corals were rotting away, and entire branches were missing. The fact that this location was intended to be a safe haven for corals made the situation even more difficult to process. Having seen the site in the flesh, I believe it is unlikely that any of these corals will survive until they are ready to be planted on reefs elsewhere, and the prospects look grim for the future of the area's reefs. Following this sobering undertaking, we traveled to the mangroves on Virgin Gorda's north shore for a snorkel, our final oceanic activity of the trip. This had been one of my personal favorite parts of last year's trip, and I was hoping that it would help relieve the emotional strain brought on by the nursery dive. Unfortunately, the state of the mangroves had also deteriorated a great deal. The sea cucumbers and lizardfish that once dotted the sand around the roots were no more. The large barracudas that patrolled the area just a year earlier were nowhere to be found, and no basketball-sized pufferfish or little sharks were anywhere in sight either. To make matters worse, the snorkel ended prematurely due to someone being stung by a jellyfish, a fitting end to an overall disappointing day. Tomorrow, we will help out at the local school, which will hopefully at least provide us with the satisfaction of doing good deeds, a sensation that I dare say all of us could benefit from.
