We have been here for four days now, and what an experience I will never forget. The first day began with a tour of where we will be staying for the next two weeks, and what a beauty it presented to me. On the second day we got to go snorkeling in this beautiful bay. It was my first time snorkeling, although it was very frightening even though the fish are maybe tops the size of my foot, it was still a one of a kind experience. Later on in the day, we had to catch collections for our tanks; it was a hard time to catch fish with just a small net, so I tried a cast net. A few of my classmates tried to teach me how to use it, my first try… lets say, it didn’t go as I planned as I saw it hit the boat, they do say “first is the worst”. I try it a second time, remember the phrase “second is the best”, well I did catch about 2 fish that time, but unfortunately they all jumped out of the net. Now, my third time, I threw it perfectly out, and I ended up catching roughly around 15 Redear Herring. I jumped for joy as it was very exciting to me. I guess I can now say “Third is the lucky charm”. We then added it our collection tank, it was pretty cool because as we put them in, they all joined together and became a school of fish. As the third and fourth day came, I started to learn more about the marine life of Jamaica and the history. It was sad and shocking finding out about the invasive species of the “Lionfish” as well as the anthropogenic natural causes. The Lionfish has become such a threat to marine life out in the Caribbean, and since it has no native predators it just keeps producing and keeps killing juvenile fish, without any predators. Also its sad to hear about all the overfishing done by locals, we now only see juvenile and small fish instead of larger ones as previous years had. I have to say, not having any marine science background, I have learned so much these past four days, and I cannot wait and see what else I will learn.

Swarm of Redear Herring, even though there are so many, trust me when I say this; these fish make it hard for you to catch them.

-Kat