The past few days have been full of hours of snorkeling, delicious meals, a few special activities, and a whole lot of heat. Seriously, it is crazy hot here, but all that's doing is just encouraging us to spend more time in the water. We've seen some great things in the past few days, so definitely check out the pictures.
We had our first lecture a couple days ago, discussing the phylum's Porifera and Cnidaria, who's members of focus for us include sponges and corals. We had a great discussion about the simplicity or complexity of sponges, and whether they should be considered animals or colonies. The answer is, it's complicated! Sponges may not have organs or organ systems or the ability for thought, which leads many to say they're simple, but they have abilities that many organisms that are considered complex, such as humans, don't have, like the ability to regenerate from a single cell, or to differentiate and undifferentiate their cells.
Yesterday we had two awesome activities, the first of which was a hike around the island to the Garifuna village. This hike was a bit crazy and very fun. We trekked up and down steep hills, scrambled across rocks faces, and nearly rock climbed at some points. We even had a very sweet puppy join us for a good portion of the hike! When we reached the village, we went and talked with some of the local school children. Thank god we had Isabelle with us, as she was able to translate and help us converse. We talked to them about what we were doing on the island and how we're studying marine biology, then gave them some gifts to say thank you for talking to us and having us on their island.
Last night was the second of our awesome activities, as we did a night snorkel. We had an awesome time swimming around somewhat blindly, and the highlight was definitely seeing not one, not two, but three super unique, incredibly cool, fantastically amazing animals. Are you ready? We saw: 1. baby lesser electric rays, 2. yellow sting rays, and 3. an octopus hunting!! Seriously, take a look at the photos and video below, it was awesome.
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