My son and I after a nice snorkel! Photo creds: Kelly

The water has always been a big part of my life, and being on this trip to Jamaica has just amplified my love for everything in the ocean. Although I am a certified diver, these past two days I have been snorkeling instead of diving. Although you may not get as up close and personal with some marine life as you would diving, I have come to appreciate and really enjoy the relaxing activity of snorkeling (and I have been seeing some really cool stuff these past two days). Yesterday most of the class ventured over the reef crest. It wasn’t hard going out over the crest but coming back was whole other story (and I’ll get to that later). It was fun to dive underwater and try and get close to the coral and see all of the tiny fish that live inside. I was able to live my dream of being a mermaid and swimming in the big ol’ blue.

Getting back was hard, though. It started to become low tide and there were so many sea urchins all along the coral so it was kind of like going through a maze with sharp spines everywhere. You had to be really careful where you swam and you had to time it with the wave crashes so there would be enough water for you to actually make it over the rocks and urchins. It was nerve racking! But once we were over it was smooth sailing back to the dock. On the way back, I saw some really cool organisms. We saw a Yellow Stingray and someone found a small two-spined sea star, which I took back to the wet lab with me (I love him so much, he is my son). Today we snorkeled as well, and I saw a really cool Chained Moray Eel, which was the first eel I saw since I’ve been here. So overall, snorkeling has opened a world of amazing creature to me and I can’t wait to se what else is under the sea!

Signing off!
Julia