Wednesday – More than Four Sponges!
After our normal wake up (fall out of bed) and head to breakfast, at least that’s how it goes for me, we all headed off for two dives.
Today our first dive was at Four Sponges, but I’m pretty sure I saw a lot more than four!! The barrel sponges however were huge and prolific, so I completely understand where that name came from!
Our second dive was to The Canyons. When we got in we were lucky enough to find an octopus!
And then later on, our Divemasters showed us a seahorse!! My favorite!
More proof from our surface interval!
Students attended a lecture today on coral restoration. They learned how to scrub corals so that they could be prepared on the dives tomorrow. Coral nurseries were also discussed and their roles in conservation. These nurseries need to be in environments where there is little stress. Coral is grown suspended from trees on a wire and when they are big enough they are planted back in the reef. RIMS has a number of trees that they are hoping will allow them to restore the reef back to what it was 20 years ago. They also learnt about the work being performed on boulder-forming corals that are much slower growing.m
This afternoon was light for scheduled activities. I’d thought they would need a break by now. Some of our students went Horseback riding, which had varying levels of success depending which person you talked to. Some went swimming, some went paddle boarding. Chicora and I went for an additional dive, though the visibility wasn’t as good as we’d had on previous dives.
In the evening we attended the resort’s BBQ fiesta. We started with dinner followed by Crab races. We were routing for Molly’s crab, but sadly it didn’t win. However, Molly escaped with it and released it to freedom, though we have no idea how long that lasted or if it was part of the ecological food chain. The Garifuna dancers were next. The Garifuna are a community of people who originally hail from Africa and who were exiled to Roatan. They carry a wonderful rich culture of language, dances and music. They performed for approximately 30 minutes and then had many members of the audience join them.
Singing from other artists continued and some students stayed to get a Bellydancing lesson from myself, while others exhausted from the day,or just not feeling well,went to bed.
