After another morning of waking up to the beautiful ocean view right outside our rooms and turtles popping their heads out of the ocean, we started the day off with the weekly clean-up of the centre. The element of a competition between Maisy's Mafia and Miriam's Minions, our two teams, made sure we had the washing hung out and the decks spick and span in no time!
Maisy's Mafia then had a lecture on marine debris and pollution. This was extremely interesting, but a real wake-up-call about the reality that our oceans are facing in terms of plastic, noise and light pollution. When thinking about marine pollution, none of us had thought about the consequences of lights near beaches and how this can confuse thousands of baby turtles as they try and find their way towards the sea resulting in their deaths.
After listening to the lecture we made our way down to Preston Bay, on the other side of the island to do a clean up of the plastic that had been washed up. While picking up eight bags of plastic, a large barrel and half a garden chair, we realised that the 12.7 million tonnes of plastic that goes into the ocean every year meant that it could even reach this beautiful, untouched, tiny island. We even found debris and bottles from as far as France and the Philippines.
Meanwhile Miriam's Minions had a more uplifting morning of a gorgeous dive and snorkel in the crystal clear water of 'The Meadows'. We yet again saw breathtaking wildlife amongst the expanse of coral and sponges such as a juvenile nurse shark, grouper, puffer fish, barracuda and squirrel fish. Some students may have got a tinyyyy bit sunburned whilst snorkelling... 🤫
After another delicious lunch from the CCMI cooks, the groups swapped around.
In the evening, we were very happy to be greeted by a pineapple upside-down cake and another gorgeous sunset that got us ready for the debating competition later - we were glad of Mr Merrick keeping order!
We are also happy to give you the update that Miriam's Minions are pulling ahead in the close competition and beating Maisy's Mafia 12-10 :)
Written by Emily and Kitty
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