Near Shore Environment, Sharks, and Echinoderms

Day 5: Saturday, February 27
Post by: Kate Nelson

Our Looe Key snorkeling experience had been like visiting a busy metropolis with coral buildings and bright fish swimming every which way, in and out of the coral apartment buildings.The barracuda patrolled the area while the fish went on with their daily lives. This was a striking contrast to our site today, the near shore environment. We now saw patches of sea grass moving in the current and mermaid's shaving brushes (type of sea grass) swaying side to side. Huge vase sponges towered over the landscape.

When you snorkel it's like witnessing a whole other world at work. You watch its daily activity through the glass of your goggles. When you put your face beneath the water, you enter a foreign country, something so different from our daily lives. But the time came soon enough to the leave the underwater country side as we boarded the boat and headed for home.

After showering (to get warm again) and heading to lunch, we reported to the Port Portable for our shark ecology lab. Joe and Alex (our instructors) talked about sharks, where they live, their teeth, their differences from bony fish and their external anatomy. We were then challenged to order the a shark's senses based on how far away they work. We were not very close, but came to realize the needs and functions of each sense. To further apply our knowledge we walked over to the Sink Lab (wet lab) to see some shark specimens that had been found dead after the recent cold snap in Florida (about a month ago when temperatures plummeted into the 20's). All the sharks and fish had been frozen solid in a freezer which we proceeded to explore.

Next on our list of activities was swimming with the sharks (bonnet head sharks) in the holding pond. Since most people did not want to go in (still cold) a few brave souls took the plunge. Again, due to the wind and sediment moving, we could not see the bottom 5 feet below us and with a spontaneous rainstorm we were forced out of the pond in a matter of minutes.

We had an awesome dinner of spaghetti, salad, garlic bread and brownies before our evening program. In the sink lab, once again, Joe set up different echinoderm stations where we had a chance to investigate first hand sea biscuits, sea stars, brittle sea stars, sea urchins and sea cucumbers. It was amazing to get a first hand look at the tiny creatures, finally truly realizing that they are alive! Hundreds of tube feet would extend moving this way and that, grabbing debris to stick on themselves as camouflage. They are awesome little creatures and provided a great end to our day.