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Wednesday - divers see turtle cleaned by wrass
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date: 26/11/2008
Author:Laura Smith
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CONDITIONS
Weather: Fine and sunny | Air Temp: 28.9°C | Wind: NE 10/15 knots | Water Temp: 25°C | Water Visibility: ~ 20 m | Sea State: Calm
ISLAND LIFE
Critter Encounters:
An interesting find on today’s guided reef walk was the gut of a sea cucumber! As a last line of defense, sea cucumbers can eject their entire digestive tracts, and given time and a chance to recover, they can in fact regenerate new ones! Unusually, the sea cucumber that ejected the gut was nowhere to be seen… perhaps another reef creature had preyed upon it. The water around the gut was thick with long red and white threads. These are called cuvarian tubules, and are produced as another defense by sea cucumbers. Guests were fascinated (albeit a little disgusted!) by the gut, which was full of sediment that the sea cucumber had ingested.
SCUBA divers watched a green sea turtle being scoured by little striped cleaner wrasse at an underwater cleaning station. The turtle appeared completely relaxed, hanging limp in the water while the fish cleaned it, picking dead skin and parasites from its body. Another turtle nearby lazily scratched its tail with its back flippers. A blue spotted stingray glided past divers, the edges of its fins rippling hypnotically. An impressive school of barracuda was seen off the southern end of the runway. Our iconic manta rays were seen by both snorkellers and SCUBA divers!
On the island discovery tour, we found that another of our red tailed tropicbird chicks has fledged! Its two parents were sitting around an empty nest under Suite 3, and young “Zulu” was nowhere to be seen.
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Heller's Barracude - Laura Smith
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