We boated out to an ecotone, where the mangroves meet the reef to form an interesting combined habitat. This was a short snorkeling trip where the main goal was for the Marine Lab instructors to find a pink algae which ended up being a habitat for tons of different invertebrate species. During the introduction of the trip one of the instructors talked about a one in a million chance to see a baby octopus on this trip which she had only seen once before. When we were returning to our seats on the boat, someone ended up seeing an octopus near their foot and realizing that it had come aboard with the algae. When we started breaking up the algae to find different animals we found tons of baby crabs and brittle stars which we played with in the bin for a good twenty minutes. We also ended up finding a rainbow mantis shrimp which is a close relative to the peacock mantis shrimp which can break bones with its strike. When looking for a conch we found a giant hermit crab which made a home in a horse conch shell.
Later that day we went to the dry rocks to look at the Mote Coral Trees and planting sites. Mote’s really important because they saw the problem of coral reefs being devastated by pollution and ocean acidification and found a solution: plant small pieces of coral onto hanging pieces of wire underwater, which allows them to grow at 3 times the normal rate. We also talked about compassionate leadership today which ties in really well with this trip and Mote’s objectives. Leaders at Mote had the sympathy to want to find a solution, but had the extra courage to find a solution to the problem which is what compassion is.
We got back from all the snorkeling, and we decided to break out a few games. We started to play UNO and a couple of different card games.
