Today started off with an amazing adventure. The group woke up early to hike out to a new spot on Turtle Hole. We traveled along the shore's edge where we saw tons of tide pools and learned about how different creatures adapt to such intense living conditions. From very high salinity to very little water, these creatures have adapted to live in a wide variety of situations. The group also found areas where natural sea salt collects.  We were able to bag up and take back some for a fun souvenir. We arrived at the sandy beach at our Turtle Hole dive spot and took a dip in the water. It was a great spot to find sea glass and really fun shells. After we cooled off and enjoyed a snack, we hiked through the jungle to the truck. After lunch we went to a spot called Ocean Hole. There we saw a  Lion fish, schools of Blue Tangs, Hogfish, Angelfish, and my personal favorite, a Nurse shark!! It was approximately 3 feet long. On the snorkel back in, we saw a large Spotted Burrfish. Overall we had an incredible day of adventure. From our shoreline hike to our shark spotting it was a remarkable day!

What a day! Our first full day of our WILD TEACHERS 2008 CARIBBEAN ADVENTURE began with a rockin' good snorkel checkout.  Our 6 lovely ladies have all kinds of snorkeling and water backgrounds, from novice to future SCUBA Dive Master.  All of our girls did a fabulous job learning the basics of the gear, snorkeling, and free diving.  They all had the opportunity to explore the shallow waters at Alabaster bay. We saw almost every invertebrate known to man! There were sea stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, donkey dung sea cucumbers and so much more. After our wonderful first dive we came back to Outpost for a delicious lunch! Everyone was so excited to get back out into the ocean we waited only a hour for our next dive. We went to the outer wall of Alabaster where we saw a crazy mix of fish! There was a 3 foot puffer fish, groupers, angelfish, parrot fish, yellow sting rays, hogfish, a whitefin shark sucker who attached to every member of our dive group and six lionfish! Lionfish are actually a Pacific fish and are an invasive species in our area. We had a long day of learning, diving and fun ending with a night out to Governor's Harbor for the city's weekly fish fry.  Everyone is so excited and can't wait to go out and dive again tomorrow.

May 18^th

The students arrived yesterday and we only got to chat for a bit. We went over the house and dorm rules. Everyone is excited and can’t wait to learn how to snorkel today.

We started off the day by going to a dive site called Alabaster Bay. It is a shallow, sandy bottom. This is where instruction on basic dive skills took place. Although we weren’t there for much actual diving, we saw several barracudas trying to form a baitball. A baitball is where there is a large group of small fish, silversides, that are being pushed to the surface by their predators, houndfish and barracudas. From the surface it looks as if the water is boiling because the fish jump out of the water. You can often see birds swoop down and try to get a taste. After everyone successfully learned how to snorkel we headed back the house for lunch. Then the groups headed out to the dive directly in front of the house called Outpost. We saw a spiny lobster, anemone and a lot of parrotfish. Later, several members of each group went out to dive at Outpost again where we went through swim-throughs and we re-tied buoys. The rest of the groups relaxed either on the beach or in hammocks. We ended the night with a delicious dinner and dreams of more wonderful diving tomorrowJ

 

May 20^th

 What a great morning!! We got to dive the deep Outpost dive. There were incredible rock structures all over. It’s incredible that yesterday we dove in the same area but it looks completely different. Later in the day went on a dive at James Cistern. The visibility wasn’t very good but we still saw a variety of invertebrates. In the evening everyone got a chance to relax tanning on the beach, or playing Frisbee. It was a busy day but the deep dive at Outpost was what made it truly incredible.

 

May 21^st

Today was quite a day! We were supposed to go on a walk through some tropical foliage to our dive site but weather did not look appealing in that area so we changed our plans and headed towards Shipwreck beach. We had fun on a dive that lasted about forty minutes. We then had fun on the shore snacking and burying Jenny in the sand. Everyone was pretty exhausted after that so when we got back to Outpost there were a lot of students working on their projects. A few buddy pairs did independent snorkeling while Christian, Jameson, Spencer, Adam and myself went out kayaking to the Outpost dive sothey could collect data for their project. It was quite an adventure from tying up the kayaks to seeing such a variety of species. We had a great time but everyone was exhausted by the end of the day. We ended with a quiz game where the winner won a limited edition autographed Dr. Bob Jenkin’s fishing hat and Dr. Dar Jorgensen's green poncho!! It was a great day of dives and a fun night in.

 

May 22^nd

Yesterday was a fairly relaxing day. We went to Gregory Town which was the place to souvenir shop and get ice cream. It was a nice ride and going to Pam’s gift shop was a treat. Later in the day a small group decided to go on the hike to Turtle hole that had been scheduled earlier in the week. It was a great dive! We saw two queen triggerfish, surgeonfish and blue tangs galore! Each buddy pair ended up seeing something different. Adam even saw a Liger! While we were out students worked on their projects more and did research. In the evening we went out to dinner at Tippy’s. It was a beautiful restaurant and everyone enjoyed each other’s company. What a wonderful way to end the dayJ

 

May 23^rd

The group went to Current Cut today! It was the highlight of all dives. It is called a drift dive; the current pulls you along with very little kicking to make an easier dive. There is a shelf where it is very deep and moderately shallow so there is always a great diversity of species. We saw spotted eagle rays, a lionfish, puffer fish, flounder, flying gurnard. Everyone had a great time and we finished at the dive site by having a delectable lunch. In the evening we went to a fish fry. Everyone got dressed nicely and enjoyed the bbq and music. It was an amazing night filled with dancing and great people.

 

Keep Learning...Keeping Diving!

 

Bahamas Blue Staff 

Hello!

 

The first week of Bahamas Blue was a blast!  We welcomed a group of rising juniors and seniors from Roanoke College in  Salem, VA, shown in the photo below.  The students had spent a week in course lecture at Roanoke, and then spent one week at the Outpost to suppliment the course's objectives.

 

 

 

 The group spent the week traveling the island, exploring the snorkel sites, and eating great food.  They were able to observe numerous species both in water and out.  These observations helped develop project teams within the group.  Each team was able to utilize their time at the Outpost too further their classroom studies and get some great data.  Some of the projects included: Tidepool ecology, Eleutheran culture, Anole Lizards, Caribbean verses Atlantic Species, as well as many others.

 

Be sure to check out some great photos from the week.

 

Keep Learning...Keeping Diving!

 

Bahamas Blue Staff