Panterra :: MySchool Journal

Daily Journal

McCoy High

Day 4

This morning started with students wanting
to kayak. So we set them adrift to explore.

The rest of us went to the beach.

We got into some tidepooling and were
amazed by the little creatures we found.

Under this rock we found sponges, brittle stars, a chiton and a flatworm.

Under this rock was a sea anemone, tube worms and more sponge.

Megan holds a Daisy brittle star.

Carissa holds a sea cucumber.

A lizard sneakily looks on.

Devin holds a jellyfish in his hand.

The kayakers come to shore and everyone prepares for a snorkel.

Snorkel gear on and we head out on our underwater adventure.

Brown sea urchins.

Porcupine fish (puffer)

A scorpion fish lays in waiting of unsuspecting prey.

Bullseye stingray

Jose (18) and Alysha (17) celebrate their birthdays.

We invited Jose and his family from the
fishing village to join us for a lunch celebration.

Finding just the right spot for whale watching.

A blue whale surfaces with a spectacular blow.

You can see the terrific musculature of the blue whale as it prepares to dive.

It's building the momentum for the dive.

The Blue Whale dives and disappears. We whale watched
for a couple of hours. On our last sighting we saw a small pod

of Sperm whales but were unable to get any decent pictures.

The sun sets on yet another very cool day in the Sea of Cortez.

We started the day off by wishing our friend Alysha a happy birthday. After a wonderful pancake breakfast prepared by Norma and Esther we headed out to the beach. Some kayaked while the rest took the pangas.
There we did a little intertidal exploring. We found various sea life hiding under the rocks like brittle stars, sea cucumbers, and sally light-foot crabs. We then made our way to the beach and went snorkeling with Mexican hogfish, scorpion fish, stingrays and many other kinds of fish.
We headed back to the boat for lunch where we celebrate Alysha’s birthday with Jose (nephew of Celia from the fishing village) who was also celebrating his birthday. Some of the folks from the village joined us onboard to celebrate the birthdays. After lunch we visited with our Spanish friends and once they left we swam around the boat until we set out to look for whales.
We were desperate to see whales so we began to sing whale songs to bring them to us. Apparently our singing was successful because in the distance we saw the blow from a whale. We got close enough to determine it was a blue whale and continued to follow it for an hour and a half. Then making our way to our anchorage we saw five more sperm whales. All the excitement of the day had us all starving for supper.
After we ate we finished the night off with a slide show prepared by Stasia and Lela. We have now hit our mid point in our amazing Panterra trip and none of us are looking forward to heading back to Canada.

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