This afternoon a group of us spent two hours in the water learning to identify different kinds of corals and differentiate them from sponges. Once we learn to identify the species we could do surveys. A survey consists of a detailed record of the observed specimens along a 100 feet line and a width of three feet on each side of it.
The reefs here have a wide variety of corals and they are in pretty good shape. Most of them are healthy and colourful and there is also a variety of small and medium fish around the coral.
There is one invasive species, the lion fish. We spotted three of them and our guide was able to spear one of them. Quite a scary fish. It was introduced by careless pet owners and now it is doing serious damage to the local small fish population, so hunting them is encouraged.
Dinner will be served soon and then we have a talk by one of the veterinarians that are here to assess the health of the turtles.
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