Research Snorkeling: Gibbs Bay, Dawn Beach, Coralita and Le Galion
On Monday we managed to visit four snorkeling sites. The first one was Gibbs Bay, which is located on the Dutch side between Dawn Beach and Guana Bay. It’s quite out of the way and also really nice. There were loads of soft corals, mixed schools of blue tang and surgeonfish and even some living elkhorn corals.
Next, we headed up to Dawn Beach and snorkeled the North side of the bay. Near the beach, there were some algae-covered patches of dead coral that were not that interesting. If you swim far enough to reach the outer side of the reef, there are a few soft corals, but overall it wasn’t that exciting.
Next we went to Coralita, the beach at Baie Lucas. The bay is relatively shallow, with sea grass and sand which gives way to some coral formations as you swim out. It seemed like a perfect place to see spotted eagle rays, and we did see one. There were quite a few nice soft corals there as well, and the bay is relatively protected, making it fairly calm.
Our last stop was at Le Galion, which is extremely shallow and calm. We swam out around the north corner of Baie de l’Embouchure and encountered a shallow area filled with sea urchins. In some slightly deeper areas there were a handful of living corals, and on our way back we found a couple spotted eagle rays feeding in the sea grass.
