Existential experience

Where to even start with this amazing trip! So many awesome things happened. I saw a sea turtle (who we later found was named Saint) on the first day in San Salvador which told me that it was going to be an amazing week. Other things I saw included sting rays, reef sharks, and countless species of fish including blue tang, black durgon, and the very interesting white-spotted filefish. Everything that I saw and did on the beautiful island of San Salvador will forever be ingrained in my memory, but the highlight of the trip for me was swimming out to "The Wall". The wall, the shelf, the dropoff, the area where the ocean floor dramatically drops. The swim out was pretty intimidating, special thanks to Dr. Payne who came out with us to stand on the shore in a bright teal shirt so we could look back and see him for comfort. The sand ripples in the ocean floor were amazing, and before long we were seeing sea grass and sand dollars. The real excitement started when we saw a decent sized stingray. Majestic is a pretty good word to describe it. Eventually we were swimming over coral in water that was far far deeper than we were tall. We saw so many fish that I lost count of the species along with a few tiny adorable jellyfish and reef sharks. The moment that I'll remember for the rest of my life is when I swam out a few feet past the drop off. This is where the existential moment happened. I went from being surrounded by classmates in water that was shallow enough to see the ocean floor and all the life to water that was just this deep, dark, dense blue that I don't even know how to describe. It was definitely one of those moments that kind of puts the world in perspective for you, and in that moment I fell completely in love with the mystery of the ocean. 

The ocean wall (photo courtesy of Elizabeth Haralson)

One of the things I noticed in several of the snorkel spots was the lack of color on the coral reefs. In several places even within one stretch of beach there were sections of coral that had already completely died off, left as a shell to house stringy colonies of algae and completely void of all color and other life. In the photo above, this was an area of relatively healthy coral, but it still lacks color and abundance of life. Coral reefs are complex ecosystems that house numerous varieties of marine species in addition to offering protection from wave action and providing a platform for necessary marine chemistry to take place. Other people on this blog have mentioned the beauty of French Bay, but I didn't see it. I was only about 50-70 yards to the left of the group of people who saw the healthy coral, and everything that I saw was dead and covered in algae. This should be alarming, and to me it is. I'm feeling a renewed desire and intense motivation to pursue conservation of our oceans and marine ecosystems. I encourage anyone reading this to find the Netflix documentary called "Chasing Coral". We saw first hand exactly what those guys were talking about.


I hope that I'm blessed in the future to take another trip to this amazing island, and I hope that future students recognize the opportunity that they are given by being offered this class!

Ashton Mize