Conchs and Sharks, Part 2!

Today we awoke to yet another beautiful Bahamian morning.  For our morning exercise, we rode bikes to High Rock where we jumped off a 15 foot cliff.  The road was very rocky and treacherous, but the two mile trek was worthwhile.  After breakfast, our class yet again split into two teams: Team Osprey and Team Blue Crab.

Team Blue Crab went to Red Bay Beach to count the amount of living and dead conch on the beach.  We found a few dead conchs, which was very sad, but, we found at least seven sea stars, brittle stars, sponges, and other beautiful sea animals.  After lunch we went to Sunrise Beach.  At first we only found dead conch, but once we found one living conch we just kept finding them.  We found a total of 49 living conch, which was amazing!  Our third and final beach of the day, Fourth Hole, only had one living conch, but all signs of conch were scarce, therefore it was not too upsetting. 

Team Osprey started our day out on the open ocean with the shark team, which is researching why sharks die when caught on fishermen’s long lines.  Long lining takes patience, so we decided to go to various snorkeling spots to pass the time, only checking the lines every 30 minutes or so.  Our first snorkel was considered the most mind-blowing experience by many of us because we snorkeled over the continental shelf.  We could not see anything but the great blue abyss because the bottom was thousands of feet below.  Later in the day we snorkeled at other awesome spots such as the Garden of Eden and Tunnel Rock which were home to magnificent coral reefs.  Unfortunately, we did not catch any sharks but the experience was still very interesting.  We learned a lot about how the research process worked and cool facts about sharks.  Did you know that sharks are older than trees!? 

We miss you, Amanda – feel better!

Christina and Jenny