Dr. Ken Mattes and Siete led our group on an adventure to
the Mangroves onboard the Goliath, the official vessel of TREC. Even when the wind and sea are calm, the
waters are slightly murky, made all the more eerie by the tangle of roots
encrusted with life. We swam through
massive schools of red-eared sardines and silversides, passed around the
bizarre orange-lipped batfish, and counted dozens of fish species. Not only are the mangroves significant for
their ability to trap sediments and provide nutrients to the adjoining
ecosystems, they function as a nursery for juvenile fish. From the mangroves,
we traveled to Coral Gardens which had the most impressive coral display thus
far. Between two magnificent stands of staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) and Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata), we spotted robust hybrid colonies of the two, Acropora prolifera. And we had a Finding Nemo moment when we swam with a hawksbill turtle. After a brief respite back at Casa Neptune, we
again boarded the Goliath for the much anticipated night snorkel at Tuffy, a
site named after the sailing vessel that had been foundered by an huge arc of
elkhorn coral nearly 30 years ago. We
hypnotized squid with our dive lights, spotted dozens of spiny lobsters, captured
and inflated pufferfish, and some of us were brave enough to allow an octopus
crawl across our backs. However, the highlight of the night had to be the
display of bioluminescence by the ostracods. One by one, seemingly hundreds of
string of pearls showed off their blue lights in a mating display. Overall, we
had a busy day filled with adventures that we will not soon forget (written by
Bryana Ferris and Arti Patel)
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| The mangroves from a surface water perspective. |
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| A beautiful file fish. |
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| Though eerie, there is an abundance of life among the mangrove roots. |
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| Sargent majors amidst the mangrove epiphytic community. |
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| A pod, a deck, a shield, a risk, a veritable exhaltation of Caribbean spiny lobsters! |
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| Sea fans, sea rods, elkhorn, fire, boulder-star,and mustard hill corals at Coral Gardens |
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| How many hard and soft coral species can you identify? |
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Another beautiful Coral Garden seascape.
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Sunset from the bow of the Goliath before the night snorkel.
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