Roatan: Summer 2016

Day 9 - June 12 - Project Dives and night snorkel

While it was a full day, there really was not much to write about.  Our two dives today were devoted to the student’s research projects.  The projects included looking at the reaction time of Yellow Jaw fish and Christmas Tree Worms to predators, the coral preference of Christmas tree worms, the percent of Sharp Nose Puffers with white spot disease, and abundance of Cactus Coral by depth.  The groups did well and collected a lot of data.  After lunch we headed back out to Bailey’s Key to select coral heads for the night snorkel. While snorkeling, each buddy pair selected a coral head and inventoried all the organisms present during the day time.  They then marked their coral head with a color-coded set of glow sticks.  After dinner (and dark) we returned to Bailey’s Key.  The students located their coral head and then repeated the inventory, so they could see how things changed from the day-time community to the night community.  After that it was off to bed as we have the large animal encounter scheduled for Monday.