Hey wilderness classroom followers, today was full of really exciting things!
First, we got up and went out for a mangrove snorkel - a mangrove consists of trees that plant themselves in the water and are used by animals as a nursery because of its protection. It was really cool, we saw things like upside down jellyfish and stingrays - Noah was acting pretty worried and thought every sand pile he got near was a stingray that had buried itself and it would pop out and sting him but thankfully none were.
After our mangrove snorkel we did our first beach seine, for those of you that don't know what that is (don't worry, I didn't know what it was until I was out there doing it) we take a long net and bring it out about 25 feet, then four people are pulling it in, one person is snorkeling behind it to make sure the net doesn't get caught on something, and the rest of us are standing on the sides splashing water around to create a barrier so fish don't get out. We then bring the net into really shallow water and look for the types of plants and animals that are present in the area.
After two of these, we broke for lunch, then snorkeled back to the beach for two more seines. This time however we were met with a WALL of moon jellyfish...think Finding Nemo jellyfish scene...yeah. We tried to get through as fast as possible but we had some stings; its good they weren't stinging cauliflower (look it up if you want to know how bad they are). After our second seine and plenty of jelly stings we drove to an artificial coral reef known as the Hesperus Wreck. The Hesperus is a sunken barge that was being towed. It was impressive. There were tons of Southern Stingrays all around the edge of the wreck. We saw our first Lionfish, (two, actually), which are an invasive species.
There was a Sharksucker, which is a type of Remora and it naturally attaches itself to the bottom of animals such as turtles and eats the food that falls from it's mouth. This certain Sharksucker tried to attach to every person in our group which caused everyone to flail wildly and scream until we split up and it chose to go after Dominque. After we came back in we sat down to dinner, but before long the crew had to bolt out of their seats. An alarm had gone off in the engine room. The crew was down there for a while, but they easily fixed the problem. Right after dinner we went back out for a night snorkel. We all were really excited to go especially due to the fact that a few turtles were surfacing near the boat. When we got in we immediately noticed that the ecosystem was different form earlier today. In order to see the turtles, fish, rays, and even a Nurse Shark, we used flashlights.
The highlight of the snorkel was when a Logger Head Turtle surfaced 3 feet away from Noah, Sarah, and Matt. We were so close that we could have reached out and touched it. After we got out, we looked up and noticed that the sky was full of stars. Since there was no light pollution to ruin the sky we were able to see everything including a few shooting stars!
Stay tuned for the rest of our adventures here in Bimini!
- Sarah, Tegan, Tom, and Noah
After our mangrove snorkel we did our first beach seine, for those of you that don't know what that is (don't worry, I didn't know what it was until I was out there doing it) we take a long net and bring it out about 25 feet, then four people are pulling it in, one person is snorkeling behind it to make sure the net doesn't get caught on something, and the rest of us are standing on the sides splashing water around to create a barrier so fish don't get out. We then bring the net into really shallow water and look for the types of plants and animals that are present in the area.
After two of these, we broke for lunch, then snorkeled back to the beach for two more seines. This time however we were met with a WALL of moon jellyfish...think Finding Nemo jellyfish scene...yeah. We tried to get through as fast as possible but we had some stings; its good they weren't stinging cauliflower (look it up if you want to know how bad they are). After our second seine and plenty of jelly stings we drove to an artificial coral reef known as the Hesperus Wreck. The Hesperus is a sunken barge that was being towed. It was impressive. There were tons of Southern Stingrays all around the edge of the wreck. We saw our first Lionfish, (two, actually), which are an invasive species.
There was a Sharksucker, which is a type of Remora and it naturally attaches itself to the bottom of animals such as turtles and eats the food that falls from it's mouth. This certain Sharksucker tried to attach to every person in our group which caused everyone to flail wildly and scream until we split up and it chose to go after Dominque. After we came back in we sat down to dinner, but before long the crew had to bolt out of their seats. An alarm had gone off in the engine room. The crew was down there for a while, but they easily fixed the problem. Right after dinner we went back out for a night snorkel. We all were really excited to go especially due to the fact that a few turtles were surfacing near the boat. When we got in we immediately noticed that the ecosystem was different form earlier today. In order to see the turtles, fish, rays, and even a Nurse Shark, we used flashlights.
The highlight of the snorkel was when a Logger Head Turtle surfaced 3 feet away from Noah, Sarah, and Matt. We were so close that we could have reached out and touched it. After we got out, we looked up and noticed that the sky was full of stars. Since there was no light pollution to ruin the sky we were able to see everything including a few shooting stars!
Stay tuned for the rest of our adventures here in Bimini!
- Sarah, Tegan, Tom, and Noah
any pictures of the team actually snorkeling?
I haven't received any pictures of the team snorkeling yet but I'll pass along the request and post them as soon as I receive them. Thanks for asking.