Miles and I after our project dive
Photocreds @ Doc
This morning pretty much started off like yesterday morning, until we got to the boats Today Casey taught us the fundamentals and importance of coral conservation, and on our first dive Miles and I cleaned off one of the many BVI coral nursery trees. Afterwards we had a pleasant snack on the boat, and headed off to our project dive site. Once there, Matt, Miles, David and I thought of a method to efficiently track the fish species for our project. Later on the dive, we put our method into action, and tracked the number and species of fish we saw enter the 10 by 10 perimeter we created around a bed of staghorn coral. All in all, we collected a lot of useful data that will help our project. Next we headed off to pond bay where we had lunch, and were briefed on the environmental significance of salt ponds. It was really cool to see the modern mansion on the shore of pond bay (Owned by the owner of Bacardi Rum). Afterwards we snorkeled to the beach and hiked to a nearby saltpond where we observed the small creatures that lived there. On our return trip we snorkeled back to the boats and saw a seaturtle! After boarding the boat and returning to virgin Gorda we had a little downtown where we met with our groups and organized the data we collected on our project dive. When that was finished we headed down to the beach for a cookout and also watched the sunset. When we finished our meal we departed for our night snorkel where we saw a nurse shark, an octopus, a school of squid and some lobsters. It was kind of scary at times, but it was really really cool to see all of the different organisms that aren’t there during the day. Today was the best day I’ve had so far, and I can’t wait to dive again tomorrow. All in all “Today went swell.” – Cooper
