Sunday March 20

Ashlee, Candace, Kim & Sarah

Day three in the Bahamas coming to you from the horse girls. We started out the day bright and early with a delicious waffle breakfast, followed by a snorkel orientation through the creek surrounding Forfar Field Station. We saw so many cool sea creatures in the short time we were in the water. The very first animal we saw was a sting ray hiding in the sand. It was only one of the many creatures we saw while on our adventures today. We also encountered a baby spotted puffer fish and a few blue tangs. We even saw a Queen Angel fish.
After our first time in the water we got to relax for a little while before heading to a Baptist church for Palm Sunday. The experience was so different from home. The entire service was put on by a woman. There was a lot of singing involved.  The people were extremely nice and welcoming to us and it was such an amazing experience to see. When we got back to the camp we had a quick lunch before launching into a fish ID lecture done by one of the interns, Tyler.
After our ID lesson, we dove into the water for out first snorkel in the open water. The ride out to "Dave's Patch Reef" was a smooth ride.  When we got to the reef we flipped in for an amazing view of an underwater world.  We saw so many different types of fish- everything from porcupine fish to fairy basslet and even saw a trumpet fish. After our snorkel in Dave's Patch Reef, we went to "Blue Hole Key" where we experienced a whole different variety of fish. There were so many conch shells at the bottom of the blue hole. We saw a lot of starfish as well as a couple of Finger Coral. Towards the end of our trip Dale, one of the other interns, spotted a Scorpion fish that is extremely poisonous, luckily she shooed us all away before it noticed us hovering around it.
To end the day we had a wonderful bird lecture by Joe Steensma who wrote "A Guide to the Birds of North Andros Island". The day was fun filled and action packed but now its time to hit the sack.