Hi all! So, aside from Bruce, none of us posted extensively about our fabulous day yesterday. I’ll tackle it.
After breakfast, we gathered to go into downtown St. George to change a bike and get some toiletries. We got to tour a revamped Deliverance (a ship built in Bermuda to carry those stranded in Bermuda, along with supplies, to a needy Jamestown, VA), during which we were greeted by a drunk-seeming animatron who told us all about Deliverance. He was actually William Strachey, Deliverance‘s secretary. I would be a drunk too if I had been through everything he had.
William Strachey running show
After touring Deliverance and playing captain, we stopped at the town hall, where a former mayor a) told me to stop giggling, b) asked me why I wasn’t married yet (he asked Sarabeth the same question), and c) informed me that he hoped that I “marry a man who feeds me corn flakes for breakfast every morning”. I guess you get all types around here.
After that we stopped by St. Peter’s church, as Bruce wrote about, and then went to see the area “near where the heart of Admiral Sir George Somers” is buried.
We zipped back to BIOS, ate a splendid lunch, and set out again for Devonshire Bay. Our first time riding the Causeway (a bridge running from one island to another– very open to the elements) was a bit of a jolt since I hadn’t been around wind that fierce yet. We have since ridden it 6 times without a problem, but it is still a little stressful every time we cross it… and such a rush every time we make it safely over!
SO- made it to Devonshire Bay, tried to tame a stray cat… and failed… saw some AWESOME West Indian Top Shell fossils, and then made our way to John Smith’s Bay for some spectacular snorkeling!
Big ol West Indian top shell, ~125,000 years old
Fish/other things we saw while snorkeling: parrotfish (I love them), damselfish, a golden spotted eel, tons of brain coral, sergeant majors, french grunts, a trumpetfish… can’t remember more specific names, but the list goes on!
We finished up snorkeling, came back to BIOS, ate a great dinner, and went out for an evening plankton tow! We started with a talk at 7 by a technician named Andrew Collins. He gave us the low down on plankton: size ranges, what all the term encompasses, organisms we might see in the tow, etc. During the talk, Winky the BIOS cat gave us a special appearance! She was trying to steal the show.
After the talk, we went out on the boat for the tow. We didn’t see any bioluminescence ( 🙁 ), but we did see TONS of cool arthropods, radiolarians, and acantharia. I do wish I could have seen a foram or two, but you can’t win ’em all.
After a fantastic– and long– day, we made our ways to bed, tired and happy!