First Few Days at Cabo Blanco

Initially we thought that we would not be able to start snorkeling until our 3rd day, but luckily the tides were in our favor and we were able to start on the 8th. We slept extremely well our first night on the sleeping porch, and had breakfast at 7 am. After breakfast Milton gave us a lecture on fish. We learned some extremely interesting things. Did you know that our closest invertebrate relative is the star fish? We we kind of let loose after our first lecture and were able to explore the beach. The beach has an extremely large tide level. Most of the coast is very rocky when it is at low tide and little tide pools are exposed. When it is high tide there is barely any beach. One day we were almost trapped during high tide when we decided to explore the beach, let's just say we ended up getting very wet.

We went snorkeling that evening around 4 or 5, right before dinner. I was a little nervous because I had never been snorkeling before, but it is extremely easy. All you have to do is breath. During certain tide levels there is a lagoon right off the beach. In the lagoon there are the most beautiful fish. Our first time we were able to see a large sea turtle and we followed all around the lagoon. We also saw the barber fish, which is bright yellow and black. We also saw a lot of puffer fish, and also live conchs. It was amazing to see the different kinds of fish so close to the beach. 

After snorkeling we cleaned up and had dinner. It is amazing how tired you can be after spending all day in the heat and sun, and we went to sleep extremely early every night we were at Cabo Blanco. 

The next morning we were up really early in order to catch the tide. We went snorkeling for over an hour and were able to find the sea turtle again! We also saw the barber fish again, and we got to see something truly amazing. We saw the barber fish cleaning the grey grunts. The barber fish would swim towards the grunt and the grunt would open there mouths and the barber fish would pick out bacteria. Diana said this was truly special and that she had never seen it before. We usually had free time from about 1030 until about 1 or 2. I think this was because it was extremely sunny and hot during these hours and they wanted us to be as hydrated as possible. That afternoon Diana gave us a lecture on Marine Ecology, and then we had dinner and slept on our porch.

The next day we got up early and had breakfast. After breakfast we went to a specific part of the beach where there are a lot of shells. We did an exercise where we collected as many differeny types of shells as possible in 6 minutes. After shell collecting we had another amazing morning of snorkeling. After lunch we had a shell identification lab where we learned about the different types of shells. 

The first day we went snorkeling I actually cut the bottom of my foot on one of the rocks. After ignoring it for a few days I managed to get a rock stuck in the cut. It hurt very badly. After dinner, Pick, or as I know call him, Dr. Pick, attended to my wound. He was very attentive, sterilized the tweezers, and cleaned out my cut, and bandaged me up. 

Our next day at Cabo Blanco was equally exciting. We snorkeled for our last time! We snorkeled for around an hour, and then we just decided to swim around in the lagoon. David and I swam back and forth across the lagoon and it ended in a relay race with kate and I on one team and Wyatt and David on the other. Kate and I won by a landslide. 

After lunch we got to do a cool exercise. All 8 of us found an isolated spot on the beach, where we couldn't see or hear anyone. We sat there for an hour and observed everything around us, asked questions, drew in our nature journals and took pictures. It was very interesting.

Can you believe all of this only happened in the first part of our trip!