Today we woke up at the usual time and went to the marina again for breakfast. While we waited we went in to the gift shop for what would be the last time this week, since today was our last dives, and I bought 2 t-shirts and a hat. After we ate, we went out on the two boats and traveled to Long bay at the opposite end of Virgin Gorda.
First, we snorkeled around the area for an hour to scout out the coral we would use to re-plant. While, out there I saw a lot of diseased coral and another sea turtle, which wasn’t tagged. After we got back on the boat we put on our scuba gear and went out in the water, which was only about 30 feet. Brian, who has been our group leader all week, led us to find some diseased coral that we could salvage some healthy parts from. In our second dive, we would then tie the coral to a hard surface where the polyps would reattach and healthily grow. So, after the first dive we collected 19 healthy staghorn coral fragments and headed back to the boat for a snack. The second dive was a lot of work, but we managed to tie each piece, tag them with a number, and measure their heights and branches. Unfortunately, my knee bumped into some fire coral, which was every where, as I was trying to stay neutrally buoyant. The stinging was annoying for a while, but luckily I didn’t touch near as much as some other people. Me and Francis ended up recording reattaching 5 pieces before returning to the boat.
So our last dive ended and we headed back to the marina after answering some questions for prizes. We went back to the cabins, washed up and took a short nap before leaving to eat BLT wraps and Mac and cheese for dinner at Maddogs. After dinner we headed to the concession/ office building, but there were some people using it, so we headed back to our cabins to type our blogs, go to sleep, and submit them in the morning. Tomorrow will be our last day, and we will be working on a mural for a community project, where we will have to paint something on a part of a wide wall with other paintings, which we see every day on the way to the marina.
