A Rough Day at Sea

This morning a few
of us woke up bright and early and were down at the dock by 7:30 AM
in hopes of going SCUBA diving, but unfortunately it was so windy and
the waves were so big that we couldn’t go. Not wanting to waste our
morning, the group went out snorkeling near the mangroves for an hour
before breakfast.

If we can’t
go out diving, at least we can snorkel!

Swimming
out to the patch of mangroves – the water’s not as clear today

After breakfast,
lunch, and a few long hours of lectures in between, we went out
snorkeling again. The waves were still super rough but we were
determined to go all the way out to the reef crest to work on our
collections and take pictures for our photo IDs. We eventually made
it all the way over the reef crest to the dropoff, but not without
getting tossed around by some waves and acquiring a few bumps and
scrapes from the super-strong surf. It was definitely worth the trip
though as we saw a bunch of fish and algae, a juvenile cuttlefish, a
blenny and a bunch of really cool-looking coral.

Brain coral
on the reef crest

The surf
was so strong it ripped out a bunch of seagrass

Now we’re all up
late working on memorizing our species names lists for our exam on
Monday. It’s definitely been a rough day at sea, but also a fun
one!

Allie G.