May 25, 2025

GRRS First Full Day!

What a great first day we had! We began with an easy morning, just an equipment check and quick swim to the patch reef right off the island from GRRS. I was so excited to get in the water and see my first wrasses! I saw a juvenile Spanish Hogfish during the “fins in the water” swim that morning, but the wrasse sightings didn’t stop there!

In the afternoon, we took a boat ride a ways a way to Long Key (only 10ish minutes, not the 3 hours of the day before.) There, I saw so many wrasses (and took pictures of 38 of them) My favorite ones I saw were the Juvenile Painted Wrasse because it stumped us on the identification process, so it was fun to figure it out, and the adult male Blueheaded Wrasse, because I had done a bunch of research on it, so I was excited to see it in person. It also let me follow it around with my camera without darting away (unlike the Slippery Dick or the Puddingwife) so I got some good pictures. It was super fun to get out and see the reef, even if I got stung by a fire coral (felt like a jellyfish sting, 0.3/10 on the pain scale) in hot pursuit of a juvenile yellowheaded wrasse. Good news: I got the picture!

Overall it was a great day, and I can’t wait for another 4 more here! Can’t believe we’re on day 10 of this amazing experience!

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