Day 3- Traveling to Innoceana & Beach!

 On day three, the students woke up bright and early at the hotel. We had a quick breakfast of rice, beans, and eggs and then hit the road. While enduring the 4 1/2 (turned out to be close to 5 ) hour drive we participated in multiple activities to keep busy.  Students taught their peers how to make bracelets, read books, sang songs, and a few took naps. Around noon we took a quick stop to get food at a buffet style rest stop, some of the food included rice, vegetables, soup, mashed potatoes, steak and a few other options. 

 After that, we arrived at innoceana. Innoceana is an organization that works with marine and costal conservation and education. We first toured the building, we saw the classrooms and equipment rooms as well as the dorms that the boys will be staying in. After that, we had our first class at innoceana. We learned about what their organization does to benefit the environment. The most interesting thing in my opinion is the 3d coral mapping. They scan a coral head, and then compare it months later to manage the corals growth progress. They also do work with whales, dolphins, turtles, and other marine organisms. We also briefly learned about the mangrove ecosystem.  We learned about the different mammals, reptiles, and birds we could expect to see on our mangrove tour that we will do tomorrow. This was super interesting and my favorite animal that I learned about was the Potoo bird. 

Once we finished the class we made a pit stop at the Airbnb that the girls will be staying at, and then headed to the beach. The beach was an amazing experience, we played in the waves during the sunset. One funny moment was when a crab bit my toe and then wouldn't let go for a good minute (its ok it didn't hurt). After the beach we went back to the air b&b and some students jumped in the pool while others cooked spaghetti for dinner. Afterwords we cleaned up and the boys headed home. This was a great first day and I am very excited for the rest of the trip! 

Sofi

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