Today started the same as usual but today we weren’t going to be scuba diving which was a bit of a bummer. However the day did not let me down because we did two really interesting things. My group started by getting dropped off at Savanna Beach where we got to help spot and catch different types of invertebrates such as snails and urchins. We tried to catch a squid but those are just a little bit faster than a sea slug. This was the first time I got to see a squid in person and was possible the coolest thing I’ve seen on this trip. I even got to witness the chromatophores changing colors on his back. After giving up on catching the squid we collected a few more things and headed ashore to study them. We spoke about all the different things we caught, and got to touch and hold most of the things we captured. When we finished this we drove to the dock to board sea dragon in search of sea turtles to tag! The technique for catching these turtles was to first spot them, signal to everyone you found one, then surround the turtle and distract it while one of us grabs it from behind. I forgot to mention that we would be dragged behind the boat on ropes with our snorkels on looking for them which was fun for the most part until almost everyone was eventually dragged through a field of jellyfish! The first turtle sighting was from the second deck of the boat and when we swam out to where it was we couldn’t find it unfortunately. We continued to look and when we found nothing we tried one last area and found another greenback sea turtle! Wyatt spotted it and as we went to look for it I spotted it with IV quickly yelling to everyone else I had found it! I then proceeded to the front of the turtle were I was looking at it and distracting it from the other divers coming. IV was positioned behind it then as the rest of the divers arrived the turtle started to swim under me. As it increased speed I decided that this was the only chance to grab the turtle. As it started to get under me I dove down as quick as possible to try to cut him off in the water I reached for it but sadly turtles are insanely fast under water. We looked for about 6 minutes longer eventually giving up and leaving empty handed for the day. We went back to our cabins and started to make sure everyone had there part of the project presentation down. We presented it went to the beach and ate pizza. On a side note I’m the blog room about 2 minutes ago I learned that Gaz’s name is spelled Gazz…
