All day boat trip

Islas Zapatillas

Upon arriving at out first snorkel destination, we were greeted by bottle nosed dolphins; a clear sign that today was going to be a great day for an all day snorkeling adventure. Our first stop was between the Zapillas islands, Bastimentos marine reserve founded in 1988 that includes 11,730 ha of marine environment and 1,630 ha of terrestrial environment.

elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata

We all jumped in anxious to see what was hidden beneath the waves without realizing how strong the current was. Luckily our captain was kind enough to re-anchor the boat so that we could do a "drift" snorkel rather than fighting the current to get back to the boat. The coral reef was beautiful, with a vast amount of life and color. The highlights at this site were seeing the large colonies of elkhorn coral and large stoplight parrot fish.

stoplight parrot fish, Sparisoma viride

flattened helmet comb jellies, Beroe ovata

After watching the soft corals sway back and forth for about an hour, several of us felt a bit seasick (including myself), so we decided to go explore the island and then have lunch. On the island there were numerous posts with colored tape indicating the where Hawsbill sea turtle eggs had been laid earlier this year. Just about the time we finished out lunch, several boats full of tourists showed up on the island, indicating it was time for us to venture on to our next snorkeling site.

Our second site was on another coral reef, and although beautiful I found myself focusing my attention on the pelagic organisms in the water column and benthic creatures hidden in the sand. There were so many ctenophores (comb jellies) at this location, that I could hardly hold in my excitement. We saw several sea walnuts and a few flattened helmet comb jellies.

southern sting ray, Dasyatis americana

On the bottom we saw a yellow sting ray as well as a southern sting ray. We also saw a small school of Caribbean reef squids and a dazzling warty jellyfish. There were lots of other amazing fish, corals and other creatures covering the ocean floor.

yellow sting ray, Urobatis jamaicensis

It was a long day of snorkeling on the reef and when we returned to STRI we continued snorkeling to collect data for our group projects. After dinner we dried out while learning about coral conservation by our professor Jan Hodder and then finished off the night by looking at the pictures we had taken throughout the day.

Although we were all exhausted by the end of the day, everyone went to bed happy after spending another day in paradise doing what we love most, snorkeling for science.

~Katie

warty jellyfish, Pelagia noctiluca