On Monday, Years 3, 4 and 5 excitedly headed down to Big Blue Dock to meet Chris, Laura and Ben, our ‘Big Blue’ happy tour guides and boat captain, for our much awaited summer field trip! After being fitted with fins, life jackets, and after a formal introduction to the boat and water safety, we set sail for Little Water Cay. The signs were there that we were going to have a remarkable day as we saw a little sting ray before we had even left the dock!
Despite tricky winds, Chris managed to anchor the boat very close to shore and Laura and Ben walked us around the island (More luck – another sting ray came out to meet us!).
On the tour we learnt how to spot a male and female iguana, we learnt that they ate sea grapes and that hungry cats and dogs were the reason why iguanas can not be found on Providenciales!
After returning to the boat we headed out to the third largest reef in the world for a snorkeling adventure.
We were extremely impressed by the beautiful sea life and in awe of life beneath the waves; the visibility was excellent! The different corals looked like we had landed on a different planet. We saw parrot fish, a queen parrot fish, a barracuda, yellow tail snapper, a big grouper and a trumpet fish to name a few! A lucky few saw a baby nurse shark swimming below us!
Our last part of the trip took us back to a different side of Little Water Cay, here we learn about mangroves. Laura also told us that there were three different types of mangroves. Did you know that they can live in salt water because they sacrifice one of their leaves to store all the salt? Or that Mangroves are a form of defense against hurricanes?
Ben and Laura showed us an upside down jelly fish. One child said “the upside down jelly fish looked impressive the downside up!”
The children and teachers who were lucky enough to go on this trip would like to say a HUGE thank you to Big Blue for doing the the two trips it took to take everyone, and looking after us and for teaching us so much about life around our island. Everyone had such a fantastic time and were sad the trip had to come to an end! Hummm… Jackie, Ben, Laura and Chris…. What can you show us next time?
By Miss Steph and Year 3/4