Day Twelve: Mangrove snorkel, final project dive, and beach BBQ II
For a little change of pace, we headed over to a mangrove patch in the back reef area for our morning water activity. We got to snorkel around the massive root systems of the red mangrove, which serve as the nursery area for most of the reef fishes. After the mangroves, we snorkeled the back reef area of the extensive barrier reef on Roatan. It was somewhat different from the habitat we have been diving the past 10 days. The afternoon dive allowed the students to finish up their research projects. They will be presenting their results on Friday. While we were waiting for the second of two dolphin lectures, we were treated to a dolphin show outside the lab. Tomorrow everyone gets to do their dolphin swim. Wednesday nights are the beach BBQ and fire dance, so that was a repeat of last week, while everyone enjoyed themselves, we did not have any winners like last week. Tomorrow morning is the lab exam, so everyone is hitting the books right now.