Last minute schedule changes led to an amazing Friday of classes. We were suppose to go camping in the National Park but due to the storm that has past over left the area we were going to go closed. Waves and rain washed out roads and flooded the area we were going to be sleeping at. However, the trip is being rescheduled and our class schedule had to be revised. We had an hour lecture on habitat loss and then spent the afternoon exploring more of the island and snorkeling.
We went to a site called La Daania's Leap to begin our afternoon snorkel. We jumped off a cliff about 15 feet or so into the ocean. Once everyone was in the water, we began swimming toward another site called Karpata. The coral reef that we got to explore was a lot different from Yellow Submarine were we normally dive and snorkel. The reef has a lot more complexity because there are Acropora spp. present. Acropora spp. are branching corals that increases the rugosity of the reef. These species have been removed from a majority of the sites due to human impacts as well as natural impacts. Also, there was a good amount of damage to other corals at this site due to the recent storm and wave action that has been occurring the past few days. This just goes to show how fragile these ecosystems are.
Besides seeing different coral species, I saw a lot of different fish as well as other marine life. I saw a total of 5 Hawksbill sea turtles, a bunch of moon jellyfish, 9 Caribbean reef squid among many fish species. One of the sea turtles I saw today was missing one of its back flippers, but it still cruised along in the water.
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| Acropora palmata & Honeycomb cowfish |
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| Hawksbill sea turtle |
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| Caribbean reef squid |
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