Red, Black, White and Buttonwood!

Today was a great day, as we got the opportunity to go back to Conservation Cove and learn about mangroves. To be honest, it was really fun! We learned so much about the four types of mangrove trees that grow in the Bahamas: Red, Black, White, and Buttonwood. Learning about them was really entertaining. We played games and sang songs with Javan, our program facilitator from Waterkeepers. Getting to drum out our own beats on the drum really made the learning more fun, and the catchy song helped us remember the order the mangrove trees grow, starting from the water. Also, getting to see the different seeds and how they blossom helped our understanding of how mangroves grow. It was so cool learning how much a plant can do for the environment. We found so many animals living within the plants. We found two snails, named George and Georgina, as well as worms and frogs too!

For lunch today, we were the chefs. It was our job to make lunch for everyone. #teamwork. We collectively set up a sandwich buffet with the groceries we bought together a couple of days ago at the local grocery store. By noon, it was pouring rain outside. It had been raining since the morning, but it was always on and off; however, now it was really raining down on us. We rushed back into the van to go to another location (Dover Sound) to plant these mangroves. On the way, some people slept and some people sang to the music we played in the van. When we got to our new location, it was still raining/ drizzling, and the whole thing that we were going to do didn’t look very interesting, but as we got dirty and ventured deeper into the mud, it started to get really fun.

At first, we thought we were going to use the kayaks to go to a mangrove island, but then we changed our minds and decided to dive headlong into the mud. Everyone was slipping and sliding, and a few fell into the mud, like Sophia, Ms. Boll, Alessia, Dea and Eliana, maybe a few others, but the rest were survivors and didn’t fall into the mud. We went around planting mangroves, still slipping and sliding. We tried to plant them a little bit far from each other so they have air to breathe. After successfully planting all the mangroves, we had a little race to see who would get back to shore first, and Kaima won, followed by Ned. We then headed back to the van to get changed. Changing was a bit hard because we had to change outside in the rain, so our dry clothes turned into damp clothes. On the way back, the storm cleared, although it would’ve been nice if it stopped raining a bit earlier; mind you, we did get to see a beautiful rainbow. Anyway, we headed back on the road to the hotel, where we freshened up and got ready for another excursion.

After freshening up, it was dinner time, when we got on a ferry to go to Port Lucaya. We shopped in the straw market for a bit, looking around all the stores, then we went for dinner at a Greek restaurant called Zorba’s. The restaurant had very cool vibes and very nice seats. When we got our food, we all loved it and ate so we were filled, then we walked back to the ferry, which runs hourly. We got on the ferry and headed back to our hotel to learn some facts about lionfish from Dr. J. It was so fun learning about this invasive species. Lionfish originated off the coast of Indonesia and in the Indian Ocean, though they now populate numerous areas in the Atlantic Ocean. They may look pretty, but they have basically no predators, and the worst part is they eat everything up to half their body size! After this fun and impactful day, we all had a little debrief, walked back to the hotel and fell asleep.