MARVET Day 10

Today was the last day of MARVET. We headed off to Puerto Adventuras (where we played with manatees) at 7am to tour their fish house. During our time in the fish house, we helped prepare diets for several of the dolphins for the day. The fish house is a spotless and super clean space. To prepare a dolphin diet, you start by hand selecting all the fish for weighing. The fish must essentially be perfect – no lost eyes, broken bodies, guts hanging out, damage to the skin, etc. Next, fish are placed on a scale until the amount the dolphin needs for the day has been met (say 3 pounds). The fish are then evenly distributed among 4 coolers that will go into the freezer for trainers to take out for each session that day. It’s a pretty smelly job!

We had a few more lectures to wrap up with before giving our presentations. We were placed in groups of 4 or 5 and given a research paper to read and present on. Our paper was about marine mammals as sentinels. Our paper and presentation was the longest but each group managed to get through everything! We said our thank you’s and goodbyes and headed back to the hotel for the afternoon off.

Afternoon off? Guess what that means! More diving!! 3 of us headed off to the dive shop for a 2 tank dive. Keeping with tradition of being clumsy and silly, I of course caused the most problems (extremely minor though) and we got 2 beautiful dives on reefs called Mochee and Jardines. We saw tons of fish – I’ve never seen so many big fish in one place which is so cool! We also saw a ton of squid and were able to get really close! We stumbled upon an eel that was sleeping in a cave that must have been at least 6ft long and was as thick around as a small child. I’m glad he stayed asleep! The boat was eagerly awaiting us both times we ascended much to my relief and pleasure. I did really well controlling my buoyancy and breathing during both these dives, I am very proud of my progression!

We had one final MARVET dinner where we received certificates and delicious dinner at the instructors’ house. They made so much delicious food! After dinner, my roommate and I did some last minute shopping before turning in for the night to pack. Tomorrow is a long day!