Rio Bueno!

We were all treated to a nice change of scenery this morning and were taken via boat to Rio Bueno to dive and snorkel! The divers were taken down in groups of 4-5 and were then free to explore for as long as our air tanks would allow. I went down with Allie, Lauren, and Kyle while our professor, Joe, led us. After dropping down about 20 ft and getting ourselves situated, we continued on and swam down to 60 ft along a wall of coral, where we then stayed for roughly 30-40 minutes. We were surrounded by huge schools of fish and beautiful coral formations. Within 5-10 minutes of our descent we came across a pair of lionfish, an invasive species that negatively impacts the reefs here in Jamaica. So Joe, fully equipped with his spear-gun and mesh bag, naturally went on a killing spree- or to put it more nicely, an ecological restoration spree. He caught a total of 5, which means lionfish for dinner for us! Some other notable finds for our group were an elusive scrawled filefish and some flying fish while we were on the boat heading home! Safe to say this was an experience I, personally, will never forget.

Joe snags another lionfish, saving the reefs of Jamaica one fish at a time!

The scrawled filefish wedged inside a crevice in the coral, quite the awesome find!

~Sam 