We started our day with our usual breakfast of eggs, toast, fresh fruit, and juice with the added bonus of hash browns and queso fresco, prepared for us by our wonderful chef, Desuze! Since today involved an all-day snorkeling trip, we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to take along with us on the boat, using bread homemade by Desuze's brother. We got our snorkeling gear together and took off on our boats at 8am sharp (more or less).
Las Islas Zapatillas are two small islands on the other side of Almirante Bay from where STRI is located, shaped roughly like shoes which earned them the name "Slipper Islands." It took about 20 minutes to get there, and we were almost there when our boat drivers, Sebastian and Caito, spotted dolphins in the water. We watched the pod—likely part of the resident bottlenose dolphin population in Bocas del Toro—swim and play around the boats for ten minutes or so, taking lots of pictures and videos before heading to our first snorkel site.
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| A dolphin pops up by the other boat Photo: Jenna Travers |
The first site was located in between the two islands, and Richard told us there was a decent chance of seeing nurse sharks, so we were all pretty excited. While we didn't see any nurse sharks there, we did see plenty of moon jellies and lots of ctenophores. The current was really strong so we had to be careful to look up-current every so often to not get a moon jelly in the face. There were tons of reef fish, with many of the fish and their quirky habits from last night's lecture making an appearance. We saw surgeonfish swimming in large schools so they could swarm damselfish gardens without getting chased off. Damselfish tried their hardest to protect their small gardens on the coral, chasing off fish three times their size. We saw lots of parrotfish in their different stages and colorations of life, chomping at the algae (and occasionally coral) along the reef.
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| A moon jelly drifts on the current; Tessa and Katie were having fun petting the top of these, and Alex learned the bottoms sting Photo: Jenna Travers |
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| A ctenophore drifts by as well, its ciliary ctenes no match for the current Photo: Jenna Travers |
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| A parrotfish spreads its fins over massive coral Photo: Sof Fox |
Next, we headed to the second site east of Zapatilla #2 (the southeast island) where there was a phenomenal reef with tons of reef fish, ctenophores blowing in the underwater "breeze," and plenty of elkhorn coral creating large platforms for invertebrates and vertebrates alike to forage for food and fight the currents. A few lucky students spotted a nurse shark off the edge of one of the reefs and immediately screamed "SHARK," which is typically yelled to ward people off, but our group of marine biologists all came swimming over as fast as we could. Unfortunately, it had left by the time many of us got there, but some of us did manage to spot an eagle ray not too long afterward, which was the first time I had ever seen one!
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| A spiny lobster peeks out from elkhorn coral Photo: Sof Fox A nurse shark swims under students near the first reef Video: Adriana Diaz |
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| An eagle ray flaps by students Photo: Sof Fox |
For lunch, we headed to the north side of Zapatilla #1 (the northwest island) and found a quiet beach with picturesque white sand (which I learned yesterday often comes from reef fish excrement—ground up coral). We had our sandwiches, chips, and some fresh pineapple while wading in the water and watching moon jellies wash ashore. Alex picked up a snake that fell from one of the palm trees and showed it to some people passing by.
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| Alex holding the snake she caught Photo: Alyssa Rueda |
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| The view from the beach we ate lunch at. Not long after, we found the mesoglea of a moon jelly floating into shore! Photo: Jenna Travers |
Sebastian grew up on the island, so he gave us a tour and took us to the Islas Zapatillas Sea Turtle Conservancy. Decades ago, his father used to hunt sea turtles until the Sea Turtle Conservancy in Bocas del Toro approached him and offered him a job conserving them instead. Sebastian's father and their whole family built the Sea Turtle Conservancy on the island from the ground up, and his dad continued to work tracking, protecting, and conserving hawksbill turtles in Almirante Bay until he was 80 and retired. Sebastian worked with the Conservancy for 11 years before switching to STRI.
After learning about the Sea Turtle Conservancy, we walked to the south side of the island and hung out in the water for a while. Somersault, handstand, and push-up competitions were all started while fish pecked our feet. As we headed back to the boats, Sebastian cut up a coconut and we all tried the water inside and chewed on the white part of the fruit. The waves had picked up due to a storm in the distance, so it was a little choppy getting back on the boats but nothing too terrible.
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| Group Photo with Sebastian! Photo: Alyssa Rueda |
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| The Sea Turtle Conservancy Building that Sebastian's family built. Photo: Alyssa Rueda |
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| An octopus spreads its tentacles over some fire coral shortly before disappearing in a crevice Photo: Jenna Travers |
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| Brittle stars curl around soft corals at our final snorkel site Photo: Jenna Travers |
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| Two reef squid flutter through the water Photo: Jenna Travers |
We came back and had a chill night after a long day in the water. Tomorrow, we're working on research projects in the morning (Sof and I will finally get to go gather our independent variable data), and snorkeling in the afternoon. It'll be hard to top today with all the fun species we saw, but we're excited to start wrapping up our research projects and preparing for our presentations!
-Jenna
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