Bermuda Day 3 - July 8th

By Lucy, Lia, and Indy

In the morning, we went to the Bermuda Aquarium and Zoo. First, we identified fish in the tanks, which went from some common blueheads and parrotfish to ones we’ll hopefully see later, like nurse sharks and cow-nose rays. In the zoo, they had sea turtles, seals, monkeys, a bird exhibit, and a museum on Bermuda’s formation and natural history. We then went to the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, which had history of early diving methods, a bathysphere diving chamber, shell exhibits, Sargassum sea, and an interactive dive simulator to the Bermuda Triangle! 

After lunch at the aquarium, we drove over to Church Bay, where we began putting on our snorkel gear. The beach was sandy but covered in sargassum. The entrance was also crammed with sargassum, which we had to swim our way through. We swam out in groups to boilers, which are mushroom shaped structures covered in coral that produce lots of bubbles. The boilers were filled with many interesting fish like Sergeant Majors, Surgeon fish, and colorful Blue Tang. By the reef patches, we saw an abundance of different kinds of Parrotfish, including Stoplight, Princess, and Yellowtail Parrotfish. However, the bay was rough, and we decided it was best to leave a little early. 

Plankton lecture/tow: No rest for the weary! After dinner, we all headed down to Henneson Hall and attended a lecture about plankton by our guide Alex. We had learned about phytoplankton and zooplankton in previous classes, but it was amazing to learn more! Did you know that phytoplankton produce 50% of the Earth’s oxygen?! Once we finished up our lecture, we all walked down to the dock and boarded a boat to do a plankton tow. It was so beautiful cruising along the channel with the sun setting in front of us. A lot of us had fun recreating the famous Titanic scene on the bow of the boat! But of course, the science was our priority. Once we threw the net out the back of the boat, we sailed back to shore and back to the lab. In the lab, we used microscopes to identify the dozens of different zooplankton species we had collected. We even collected an adorable jelly! Then it was time to do our journal for the day and go to bed.