Snorkeling

Day 4: Thursday, February 26
Post by: Jon Lesser

Finally after a few long days of basically no snorkeling, we got to take a flat top boat out to Looe Key. The water out in the ocean was glassy it was so calm. The boat ride out took about twenty minutes, and the cold sea spray made us eager to get in the water. We stopped the boat at one of the mooring balls, since it's illegal to anchor on the coral. After a quick lesson on the formations of coral, we strapped on our snorkel gear and hopped in the water. Immediately as we hit the water we saw a beautiful tow foot long Midnight Parrot fish circling the mooring line. As we swam down one of the spur formations, we started noticing dozens of missile-shaped dark spots on the edges of the spur. These missile-shaped spots turned out to be some of the biggest Barracuda you could ever see. The biggest ones were about five feet long and about two feet in circumference. On the Barracudas were these bright blue and black worm looking fish called neon Gobies. Neon Gobies are cleaner fish and they were cleaning the Barracuda's mouth. All around the reef there were a plethora of species of fish, coral and sponges. When we got back on the boat to head back to camp, everyone couldn't stop talking about everything they saw. On the way back to camp we had some engine problems and communication difficulties, but we all made it back in one piece. After dinner at the camp we compiled our own species lists and finished the Dissolved Oxygen samples that we took at the site.