Junior SeaKeepers Floating Classroom 3: Snorkeling at Fowey Rocks Lighthouse

Overview

On Saturday, May 25th, 2024, SeaKeepers Education hosted six of our Junior Seakeepers 23-24 cohort students on a snorkel floating classroom at Fowey Rocks Lighthouse in South Biscayne Bay aboard DISCOVERY Vessel Satori captained by Brett Ury. To begin our day, we hopped aboard D/Y Satori and briefly discussed vessel safety and gave an introduction to coral reef ecology and some of the things they might find while snorkeling at Fowey Rocks Lighthouse. Once we arrived at the reef where conditions were perfect for our Junior SeaKeepers, students jumped in and used our brand new Biscayne Bay ecosystem ID guides created in collaboration with Canvas of the Wild to identify some of the flora and fauna species that were present on the reef. Some highlights of the day include swimming with two 6ft+ tarpon, spotting two different docile nurse sharks, and seeing hundreds of gorgeous reef fish and many different bird species enjoying the shelter created by the lighthouse structure. Thanks to some help from our D/Y captain and participating Junior SeaKeepers, we also removed approximately 5 pounds of marine rope and discarded fishing line from the reef around the lighthouse, further highlighting the commitment of our students to constantly leave their local ecosystems better than they found them. One additional thing that we noticed was that the water temperature in South Biscayne Bay was already quite high for the summer season, underlining the value of marine health and water quality monitoring like that the JSKs participated in for their research projects for preventing ecological disasters like algal blooms and fish kills.

By attending floating classroom outings, Junior SeaKeepers can take lessons they are learning from webinars, workshops, and cleanups and apply them directly to the local natural environment. In this floating classroom, we hope students were able to better understand the value that Biscayne Bay holds as a wildlife refuge that supports hundreds of unique South Florida species. As always, we aim for students to leave experiences with us with a better understanding of how their everyday choices impact the world around them, and, therefore, how their conscious actions every day can create a better natural world for their future.