Hey y’all!

Woke up to a brand new day in paradise along with the Blue Crabs, Hermit Crabs and Spiny Iguanas that call Glover’s Reef home!

Today, we got to work together to make a poster and present what we found about what Parrotfish prefer to eat in the coral patches around Glover’s to the professors. It was really cool to see the poster come together with such excellent illustrations (credit to Emily and Zoe).

We then waded around the seagrass beds by the dock and mangroves to see what kind of fish, crabs, grasses, and other cool organisms we could find. We found a bunch of hermit crabs, a really cool red and purple crab, and even a Box Jellyfish (this guy has a really nasty sting and is super hard to see, so I’m glad we found him and walked away unscathed!). And don’t worry, we put them all back in the water close to where we found them!

After lunch, we walked to a coral graveyard on one of the island’s beaches. Coral graveyards are areas where dead coral pieces get washed up and left in the sun as calcium gets into the coral tissues and makes them to hard and gray that they look like rocks.

We then walked to an open beach being built up by young mangroves, which are called “Island Builders” because their roots are really good at holding onto sand and other sediments.

I find it so amazing how, as small as Glover’s Reef is, there are so many wondrous things all around us!

Bonus Bit: We put a night light into the water this evening at the end of the dock to see the kinds of fish that would come by. We caught three anchovies, a herring, and a shrimp by 8 pm, which is when I turned in. But almost an hour after I left, the group caught two glass eels (fish larvae) and a Reef Squid! They totally squealed when it squirted ink in the bucket before we released him.