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Daily Journal

Matthew Halton School
Cochrane High School

Day 5

Landing at the fishing village (rock island) of Isla Pardito.

Simon and his son, Ricardo, fillet the days catch.

Finescale Triggerfish and the other some type of snapper... maybe.

Graeme holds up an Angel Shark.

Russel holds up a Shovelnose Guitarfish.
How do they come up with these names!

Heading up to the top of the island.

This building use to be the schoolhouse. It is now used
for guest visitors as all the children are now going to school in La Paz.

Captain Morgan pose.

Attention span.. well let's say a little tough.
Just kidding, I asked them to pose like that.

Nice touch with the T-shirt Dan!

Picking out handcrafted shell jewelry
made by a couple of the wives of the fishermen.

A quick break to jump off the boat and play in the water to cool off.

Not sure who this is but a pretty good guess it's a guy.

Looks like that may have hurt.
Like I said before, thank goodness we have a vet onboard!

The guys work on the Fish section of the workbook.

Working on the Geology Chapter using the big screen TV.

Hard at work identify and researching
the living organisms encountered on the trip.

Jarret plots the days course using the chart.

Sharon, with the gang not to far behind, heads out snorkeling.

Mexican Goatfish

Socorro Wrasse

Brown Sea Urchin and a Chocolate Chip Seastar.

King Angelfish (bright colored) and a small school of Sargent Major fish.

A male Mexican Hogfish.
Do you know that these fish are born female and change to male?
This ends are snorkeling adventure.

As the sun was setting and we were on a 3 hour crossing
back to the most southerly island we encountered a pod of dolphins.

They were Long Beaked Common dolphins.
They were on a feeding mission so quickly
stopped by to say hi and then they were off.

We did get a fairly decent show before they left.

Thank you Tasha (Trou) and Alice (ble) for the flag. Trouble were student
participants from 2008 that helped me get into a lot of tom foolery hanging out
with them on the trip. As requested here is a picture of the flag hung in the
salon. I did not want to chance having it blow off the boat. Thanks dudes!

We all started our day in a relaxed mood while eating a delicious breakfast. Then we cleaned up and went to the fishing community of Pardito. The people were open hearted towards us showing us their traditional fishing ways and the days catch.
We poked around in their days catch and watched as they cut up the fish. We then met a man, his name was Jason, with many stories to pass on. He had been born on the Island originally and had a great birth story to go with Lela’s original tale. We then went to the top of the island where we enjoyed a panoramic view of the bay. After a few group photos we went and bought some jewelry from the locals.

When we got back to the boat we put on our swimsuits and jumped off the top, of the top deck, into the water. We had upwards of 16 people jumping at the same time, doing twirls and posing for the cameras. It was so much fun except for that two of the jumpers lost their bracelets we had bought while at Pardito, the local fishing village we had visited earlier. A search party went out snorkeling to look for the bracelets because we were in such shallow, clear water. Naomi found Claire’s bracelet and Graham had the joy of diving for it and popping his ears. Lane’s was never found sadly but everyone else had a great time snorkeling. After jumping and snorkeling off the boat we settled into working on the Panterra Workbooks.

We had another delicious lunch and took a 15 minute break to get ready for a shore expedition.* We then got to the beach where we went snorkeling, beachcombing, and exploring. It went by really fast… We then got back to the boat, rinsed off and ran inside for some more of Paloma and Mily’s amazing food. After a 15 minute break of washing off and changing, we motored off to our next location.

During a very intense card game, we were all called to the bow of the ship, where we witnessed a “stampede” of 100+ Long Beaked Common Dolphins. The diving was great, but the dolphins were feeding and weren’t wanting to play. Then we had a delicious dinner but had to scarf it down because we were in the middle of a card game where there was no mercy!!!

Not long after we were called to the Bow for Stargazing. Stasia’s laser pointer was pretty cool and now we all want to go and buy one. Hopefully not to get anyone put in jail though… Her astronomy lessons were amazing. Thanks!

It was an excellent day and happiness and laughter was found all around.

Naomi and Claire

*Think Winnie the pooh marching off with all his friends on an adventure!

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Daily Journal

Matthew Halton School Cochrane High School

Day 5

Matthew Halton School
Cochrane High School