Eco Academy - Coral Reefs / Fossilized Reefs

Today, Champ, Panama, and Tech took us out to the Fossilized/Petrified Mangrove reef on Key Biscayne.  It's just a short walk from the area where we went for the baby sea turtle release.  The tide was so low the reef was very close.  Scout held onto my back while we swam, so we could stay together and because she didn't have fins to fit her tiny feet.

 

I took lots of great pictures of the reef - but just as we were leaving, it suddenly wasn't on my wrist.  I had just barely taken a picture with it too.  So I had Scout stand right there to mark the spot, and began looking through the deep sea grass.  It was no where.  Holding my breath underwater searching through foot tall sea grass growing on top of 6 inches of slushy mud wasn't very easy.   Panama graciously helped.  After 45 minutes, while the class patiently waited, in the sun, we had to abandon our fruitless search.  I felt just awful inside... after all, it wasn't even my camera, it was Ms Sherry's and I was taking pictures for the class.  During the search, the waves flipped me over and my hand landed on an urchin whose spines poked right into my thumb and broke off.