Today was an incredible day! We spent the morning snorkeling and doing reef zonation. We started the day in the Channel. Immediately, I almost ran head into a nurse shark. I was diving down to look at some cool coral and a nurse shark came around the corner about a foot away from me. A little later, we saw a sun spotted eel hiding in the coral.
Then, we went to the aquarium. It was super shallow compared to the channel, but was still really fun. We saw a blue irradescent flounder and a few more nurse sharks free swimming around the reef. Then, we went to a patch reef off Middle Caye. I saw lots of puffer fish and a huge brain coral.
I saw lots of herbivorous fish today! I saw a new parrot fish munching on the coral. I think it was a Red banded parrot fish. Today, was the first day that I could hear the parrot fish’s teeth scraping the algae off the coral. I also saw a huge school of Acanthurus coeruleus (Blue tang surgeonfish).
After lunch, we dissected the lion fish that Scott and Javi caught throughout the week! It was really cool. Mine and Tian Tian’s fish was a large male! After collecting physical measurements of the fish, we made ceviche. It was the best ceviche I have ever had! We took ceviche to one of the other islands and watched the sun set.