Data Collection Day Three - Turtle Rock Island, Shark Ray Alley, and Hol Chan Channel

Oh my goodness! What a day! Today we were collecting data from the areas in Hol Chan Marine Reserve. The reserve is a protected area from fishing. You are not allowed to touch or take things in this area and the park rangers were there to make sure that the rules are followed. We actually saw park rangers in two places today. The first place we visited today was Turtle Rock Island. There is not much of an island left because of hurricanes and erosion over the years, but you can see where the island was from the past. The people on the boat put out a container with food in it that looked like a large PVC pipe with holes in it and caps on the ends. By doing this, rays, sharks, turtles, various fish will come to see what we have for them.

 At this site, there is a Loggerhead turtle named Bombaso that lives here. Also, we saw several rays, horseshoe and southern that came to feed. We were able to see the turtle today! It looked brown with spots around its face and had stuff growing on its carapace. On the west side of turtle island, there is a conch shell graveyard of thousands on shells! There were all kinds of young fish swimming in and around the shells! I saw Queen Triggerfish here...with their "mascara like eyes". I also saw a fish that was very colorful...We think it was a clown wrasse. We conducted two surveys a at this site. French Grunt trial 1 - 55. Trial 2 - 32 Blue striped Grunts trial 1. - 341. Trial 2. - 30 Seeing that Loggerhead turtle was one of the most beautiful sites I have seen this trip. It started to swim toward us as a school of bar jacks swam by right in front of it. The bar jacks' purple bars were glimmering brilliantly. Our next stop was Shark Ray Alley. Wow! When we rode up to the buoy to tie up, there were sharks there to greet us. About ten or more nurse sharks came to the chum bucket to feed. By the time we got in the water, they had eaten most of the food and moved away. The horse eye jacks came to see what we had also. There were many of them! They are about 2 feet or so in length with a yellow tail and big eyes. They would swim right around you with no worry at all. As we went off to do our data survey in this reef area, we did encounter one of the nurse sharks swimming around in the corral. It was longer than my snorkel buddy, Cari so it must have been at least six feet or longer! French Grunt count 48 Blue striped grunt 240 We had no reason to be afraid of these magnificent nurse sharks! They were very graceful and fun to watch. They mainly wanted to stay away from us except if we had food. After lunch, we headed to the famous Hol Chan Channel. There were several boats there already by this time. This is what the park is named for because of the 33 feet deep channel that cuts through it. We conducted three counts here at what seemed to be a three ring circus with all kinds of things going on at once! I will explain why. In this part, all snorkels must be led by a guide so we followed Ken in my group. As we headed to the channel, we saw EVERYTHING you can imagine! First we got a look at a green sea turtle feeding on the turtle grass. It's shell was so beautiful! These turtles are named green turtles not because they are green to see but because they are green on the inside. It's shell was a brown and cream color with a turtle like pattern. As we continued, we saw sharks, rays, a bBarracuda, a Goliath Grouper (big fish!), schools of black Margate,a long thin Tarpon, Dogfish with its slanted head, school of Permit fish, Black Groupers, Gray Snappers, and, yes....TWO Green Moray Eels! In the past, I have not been a big fan of the green moray eel because they have one of the ugliest faces that I have ever seen. However, I was able to look this guy in the eye without too much fear...maybe with a small gurgled scream through my snorkel, but other than that, I met up with my greatest fear and survived just fine. Our group leader, Ken, has a mangled finger from being bit by one of these guys because he said that their teeth point backwards so if they bite, it is almost impossible to get your hand away. French Grunt count trial 1 up the channel - 27 Trial 2 - 85 Trial 3(patch coral) 34 Blue striped Grunt trial 1 - 273 Trial 2. - 654 Trial 3(patch coral)-433 There was so much to see in this channel and reef area! I can actually say that at one time, a nurse shark swam under me and I just ignored it because I was too busy counting and watching all the new species that were in this very diverse area of the park. Another interesting site was a school of parrot fish that swam in front of me. When they passed they were white, but something startled them and they left in the other direction as they turned blue! It was amazing! I never thought that I would say... "nurse shark...oh well..look over here at this!" I can tell that protecting this park seems to be making a difference from what I observed today! In about an hour or so, we are going on a night snorkel... We are eating pizza on the boat and then are heading out to Tuffy. We may get to see octopus! I will write more about it later.

Ken briefing us on the night snorkel

anxious to get in the water

Back from one of the most unique experiences I have ever had... A night snorkel. We had our pizza on the boat...yum, yum, and then we headed out to the Tuffy site. Ken talked to us about what to expect for about 30 minutes or so until it began to get dark. He is very good about explaining in advance what we are doing so that we can get the most out of the adventure. You could feel the tension and anxiety building in our group because jumping into the water at night after seeing all the things that we have seen, is quite scary! I knew that it was a chance of a lifetime so I swallowed any fear and jumped in. At first it was a combination of chaos, darkness, and people bumping into each other. For about ten minutes or so, I was just trying to figure out the dive light, carry my camera, and not run into things, but then things settled down. Someone yelled "octopus" so I headed that way. The first one got away because they are slippery little guys, but the second one got caught. George, one of our group members is a big fan of these creatures so I took some pictures of him and the octopus for awhile.

My snorkel buddy, Cari also held it and I took a picture. Next, it was my turn to hold it. The octopus was about big enough to put in your hand. It felt like a pile of slime at first. You could feel its suckers stick to your hand! While I was holding it, the octopus starting turning a little green on its arms. What an experience! Also, during the snorkel, we turned off our lights so that we could see the bio luminescence of these tiny crustaceans called the "string of pearls". The male sends a chemical signal to attract a mate that looks like Morse code in lights. There were glowing messages all underneath us! It was awesome! Also if you kick your fins to the bottom, little sparkles of another creature would come up from the bottom. If you looked up at the night sky you could see stars overhead and sparkles below. What a phenomenon! I saw a sleeping Parrotfish that sort of just "conk out" at night. I got to put a squid in a trance with my light and it just kept coming towards me until it bumped my light! I saw two puffed up porcupine fish that looked like squeaky toys. The grunts that we normally see just hanging out in the day were out feeding at night and looked slightly different. Out of all the things that we have done, this one was the greatest adventure. (so far)