The Hike

Afternoon Day Three:
Posted by Jocelyn Cole

This afternoon, we explored more of Big Pine Key with a hike. After lunch, we met our instructors and walked down the road - off property - to a trail opening at the Key Deer Preserve. While on our hike, we continued our marine debris clean-up efforts (this trail runs right along the bite and Horseshoe Island is across from this area). To help with our clean-up efforts we brought along a wheelbarrow, garbage bags, scissors and paper-pickers. As we walked along the trail and the roadside leading to the Preserve we picked up as much garbage as we could, which was a lot! In the park we explored some of the different trails, which led to many cool places and discoveries. One trail led to a beautiful view of clear blue water and a sailboat in the distance. Another brought some of us to brief sighting of key deer, and an opportunity to see an orb weaver in the trees (a type of spider that had red and black spikes on its body). On the hike we also saw and learned about mosquito trenches. Mosquito trenches were built in the 1940's to help the Keys with their mosquito problem. The trenches were designed to capture freshwater in them, which attracts egg-laying females. Then at high tide, the salt water would wash the mosquito eggs out to sea. However, this plan completely backfired: The builders were paid by the foot rather than by the quality of the job. Therefore they were poorly built and in random areas this resulted in intensifying the mosquito problem (the tides had no impact). After we saw the trenches we hiked a trail that was covered over by a canopy of trees (buttonwood, white mangroves and sea grape). We continued to pick up quite a bit of garbage(mainly bottles and cans), which we brought back to SeaCamp to have dumped (and recycled).

After dinner, we had a class on reef fish identification (readying us for our first dvie on Friday). We were introduced to different types of reef fish and given ways of identifying them by their morphology. Some of these tips came with tricks for remembering them while snorkeling. We also learned about schools (a groups of fish of the same species), shoals (an aggregate of fish), and pods (when fish swim as a large group resembling a single unit) through a very fun and active game!