Coral Heads: SPA Zone

Saturday, March 6th Afternoon Activity
Post by: Kate Nelson

After lunch we got ready for snorkeling and boat trip, part two. It was decided that we would return to the Coral Heads to try our luck in the SPA zone (hoping that visibility was conducive to good snorkeling). Since the Coral Heads are made up of patch reefs there are different areas to explore - grass, coral mounds and the halo area. We first headed to the site 1 in the SPA zone. The visibility was even better than this morning! We snorkeled along the edge of the patch reef as Alex had suggested. Just some of the cool creatures that we viewed in this area were gray angelfish; small mouth, french and blue stripe grunts; a small Nassau Grouper, and a spotted sea hare (a worm-like creature in the shape of a taco shell with a cheetah print). Swimming along we saw as many as 5 nurse sharks (all resting on the bottom along the coral mounds). Even a huge southern stingray was buried in the sand. Possibly the coolest experience of the day that I had was when a school of 100 (at least) Look-downs swam by in a pod. Trying to get a closer look and a better picture, I dove down only to realize that these odd-shaped paper thin fish had enveloped me. I was swimming along with the school, surrounded on all sides! I was a fish, a part of the underwater world. I then took a moment to just float. Looking around, I was amazed at the biodiversity, tons of species right there below me. An uncountable number of fish, sea fans, coral worms, eels, sharks, stingrays, sea grass, sea stars, sea plumes, vase sponges, and innumerable organisms around me that are invisible to the human eye. It was truly an awesome day at the reef!

When we had snorkeled most of the first set we still had time and energy left to snorkel at site 2 in this SPA zone. We made our way over to this site to spend the last 20 minutes. It was very similar to the first, but had a slight eerieness to it! Huge tracts sat coral-less only with abandoned traps at the bottom, which had become homes to many organisms. Here we saw in addition to the many fish from the first site, spiny lobster, moon jellyfish, and a hogfish , rounding out my favorite day yet. Our luck got even better when Alex went to collect more alga and came across a large, bright orange cushion star, and endangered species. It was a wet ride home, and we were all wiped out from a tiring, eventful but incredible day!