Waterfront activities all day!!

Hello all! :)

This morning I woke up to a boat blowing its horn (with a cute little song) which was actually really exciting because it was the boat carrying our next set of food! The past few days have consisted of pretty weird and bland meals, so knowing it is going to be spiced up a bit from here on out was wonderful!

For class today we had a basic excel quiz so that way our teacher knows we have an understanding of it for when we begin conducting our research and surveys this coming week. After that we had a quick lecture about REEF, which stands for Reef Environmental Education Foundation. Basically, it is a foundation that collects surveys from snorkelers, divers, or any other waterfront specialties, about species of fish they see underwater. The data (which includes the abundance of a specific species seen) is put on a web database that is free to anyone. The foundation requires no funding and its main goal is to gather volunteers to collect data during their recreational water activities for them. It is actually a really neat website, it is split up into about 7 regions and you click on the place you are at and it is easily set up for you to click on what you saw and choose an option for how many there were (e.g. "S" means single, "M" mean many, etc.). So now that we know all of our common names we headed out as a group to a new snorkel spot and did our own REEF survey! It was extremely difficult because you lose track fast since the fish swim all over the place, but I still had a great time!

By the time we came back it was lunch time, and shortly after that I was plunging myself back into the water again, but this time it was for a recreational dive :) I know I said this last time, but this dive was by far the best dive I have ever been on and my absolute favorite! We were supposed to go to a place called "The Maze", but the water was too choppy and it would have been too strong of a current. Instead we did what is called a "drift dive". Normally, we start at one spot and circle back around to end where we began, but today we just drifted along and one of the interns on the boat picked us back up at the end of our dive, so we were able to go a lot further and see way more! It was cool to not have to back track on what we had already seen. On the dive I saw 2 Green Sea Turtles (both of them close enough for me to touch!), I saw 2 Caribbean Reef Sharks also!!! They were both about 5 to 6 feet and were swimming all around us. They definitely knew we were there, but they were not bothered by us. They didn't leave where we were at, and I can finally say I have swam with the sharks!! :) When I really thought the dive could not get much better, my dive buddy spotted a HUGE sting ray on the ocean floor. It was seriously bigger than me, it had at least a 5 ft wing span. My dive master brought along her camera and took a picture of each of us alone with it so you all will be able to see what I'm talking about!! We also saw to 4ft long porcupine fish, they are the cutest fish I have ever seen LOL! What was really cool was we were able to end our dive at the arch that we had been to previously, so I got to go underneath it again and see all the big fish!! I also got a picture taken of me under there :) On top of all of the cool stuff I saw, throughout the entire drift we were going in and out of coral and it was absolutely beautiful! Our next dive is on Friday, and I'm eager to see if the dives will just be getting better and better each time! :)

After the dive we had the second round to our volleyball tournament. Unfortunately, my team did not win today, but we still have many chances to win the bracket so I'm not too worried yet ;) After that was dinner, and since then my project group and I have been working together trying to take out a big chunk of the paper. We will probably just have a little bit of editing to do on Thursday night. As for the rest of my night, I'll just be reading until I fall asleep :) I'm sorry but the pictures from today are not uploaded yet on the server, but as soon as my dive master puts them on I will show all of you! I'm off to lay in bed now, have a good night everyone!