--Eric sleeping in the RIMS classroom
So Tuesday night’s snorkel off of the side of Baliey’s Key was a very interesting experience. We witnessed many of the nocturnal fish and some very different creatures than we are accustomed to during the day. We also however witness jellyfish, turtle grass and little water gnats (baby fish or something like that) that were attacking our masks and lights. An interesting experience overall. It was enough to convince the divers to try the night dive this evening.
Wednesday morning was our trip to the mangroves on an island called Man-o-War key. In the roots we saw everything from a baby barracuda to a box jellyfish that scared even our RIMS leader Jennifer. For the rest of the morning we got to do some collecting and identifying outside of the marine reserve. We took nets through the back reef area and collected all different creatures that we then brought back to the boat and identified.
The afternoon started by identifying the many different phylum that live in the algae of the back reef. Jennifer had collected a large piece of algae during the morning, and we observed approximately 10 different phyla and many different life cycle stages all over the algae. The rest of the afternoon was a walk off the back porch of the cabana to investigate the snails and creatures of the rocky shore, or area of exposed dead reef.
-- The table where we were investigating and identifying many of the species
-- The crew wandering and searching for snails
The evening was one of the best we have had so far. It was the night of the picnic and party over on the Key. There was a lot of great food and friends. We have begun to make friends with the group of college students here from
--Traditional Honduran dancing
--Fire Dancer with all the flames
The students spent the rest of the evening ‘dancing the night away’ to the
