Watson's Sponge Flats

Thursday, March 4th Afternoon Adventures
Post by: Sam Kramer

After lunch, we took another boat trip. For the first time, we went to an area in the Gulf of Mexico, called Watson's Sponge Flats. Alex, our instructor, gave us a lecture on the phylum Porifera - sponges. We learned about the the three classes of sponges as well as the anatomy of sponges. After the lesson, we put on our wet suits and jumped in!

The water was roughly the same temperature as Looe Key, even though we were in the Gulf. Three of us, armed with nets, went off to search for spiny lobsters that like to hide in the large vase and loggerhead sponges. First, we had to spot the lobsters, who were hiding in the large sponges with their two long antennae showing at the rim tops. After we gently prodded them out of their hiding spots, we had to act fast with two nets to catch them as they would quickly swim backwards to another hiding spot. Working as a team, we were able to collect two lobsters along with multiple sponge specimens to inspect on the boat.

After we examined and returned the specimens, we looked at a bracket showing how many Americans are killed yearly from different causes. Shark attacks were tied for last place, with .5 American deaths/year. Lightening strikes took the top spot with 75 deaths/year. From 1990-2000 there were 321 reported shark attacks in the United States, whereas in the 1996 there were 43,000 toilet related injuries. The point, shark attacks are not as common place as people believe. After this enlightening discussion , we headed back to SeaCamp where hot chocolate and warm showers were waitng for us.