we are surrounded by it clear turquoise waters and white fluffy sand the waters of the Caribbean sea are just part of what makes St.croix and the other islands in the region special and while we admire its beauty and enjoy the pristine beaches we sometimes take for granted the world that it contains many of us are only aware of the beauty that lies at sea level remaining oblivious to a spectacular scene and experience below the surface that's why today we go below the water into the blue to see the magnificent world that surrounds this island of course with help from our friends at the cane bay dive shop excited i know i am let's go the cane bay dive shop is one of several dive shops on the island it's located on the north side of saint croix adjacent to you guessed it the cane bay beach cane bay dive shop has been in business for 18 years now started by hal rossbot came down here and decided he wanted to be a diver so started the shop down here we're located right here on the north shore right on the wall one of the best dives on island is right out our front door here so it makes it really easy to show everybody all the fun stuff we got to offer out here my instructor for the day will be nick what Nick doesn't know is that he'll have his hands full today because i've never tried scuba diving before so you're here to discover scuba huh yeah my first time really excited okay good you should be excited it's gonna be a lot of fun before we get have fun i need you to fill a little bit of paperwork for me okay so i just need to fill this out here answer this questionnaire once you get that taken care of we'll go play oh all right all right let me hurry up all right the paperwork is relatively easy to complete however before i can go into the water with my tank there are a few more things that i must do one of them is the discover scuba course our discover scuba diving program is for people that have never tried diving but would like to try it without committing to the to the class what you can do is you come in you watch about a 20 minute video and then you the instructor goes over what you saw some of the things covered in the course are the proper signs for underwater communication and the effects of water pressure on a person first thing we need to know about is how water pressure is going to affect us okay water has weight to it okay we're going to be going down to 40 feet at the very deepest okay that's a lot of water a lot of weight on top of us but we're not going to feel that because our bodies mainly water and other types of fluids okay water doesn't compress water okay if i take a water balloon up here on the surface fill it up and i take it down to 30 feet it's going to stay the same size okay unfortunately the same is not true for air okay so we have four main air spaces that we need to worry about when we're diving most importantly is our lungs okay kind of important airspace to have huh other things covered in the course some of the things we may see underwater none of this stuff is just going to come and attack us for no reason okay underwater safety i'm going to give you a little bit of responsibility and of course this scuba equipment okay all the gear masks fins we know about that snorkel um pretty easy stuff the regulator one that goes in your mouth it's a demand valve as you demand air it's going to give it to you as you don't demand it and you're exhaling it's not going to be blowing air straight in your face so we're not going to be you know wasting air or anything like that we got everything covered here you're not flying later today are you no okay then we're good to go so let's go diving all right i'm not even in the water yet and i'm already having trouble this wetsuit is a little hard to put on with a little muscle and movement i'll figure it out okay we just went through the flip chart instructions i'm in my wetsuit now and we're about to put on the rest of my gear so let's go now the scuba gear has to fit just right remember we're going underwater so there you go you're in your gear you're ready to go now okay yeah right here these are our gauges this this is how much you have three thousand pounds that's a good thing okay um one thousand into the yellow it's all right we'll be close to land but once you get if you get into the red we'll be real close to coming up will let you get into the red though all right this is your primary one so what i'm going to have you do is go ahead and put that in just take a couple breaths out of it for me just so you know what it's like there you go feels pretty good pretty easy okay um remember that purge button i was telling you about right there there you go blowing all that air out so what i want you to go ahead put that in push that purge button and blow out a little bit okay it's a lot yeah it's sensitive though so the less you push on it the easier it's going to be okay if you push on real hard it's going to blow a lot okay so you can just kind of push it a little bit okay so remember when you do that you're blowing out to clear the water out of there after a few more equipment checks and instructions it's time to head into the water okay i haven't been really excited but i'm so nervous but i'm looking forward to this the first time a lot of people can't say this scuba diving i'm excited i think my mom diving out here at cane bay is real safe we go over some safety stuff with you make sure you understand what we're talking about and our instructor to student ratio is only four to one when you do the discover scuba so you have a real close instructor student ratio and you always have some good eyes making sure you're gonna be okay the thing is it's so easy and most people think it's hard and it's dangerous and all that but it's not it's really easy and it's very safe and it's really really fantastic what you see down there that you know it's a whole nother world the dive experience starts off pretty simple it's almost like you're just going to the beach the only difference is you have a large air tank strapped to your back we're in the water now and i must admit it feels a little weird actually i'm very nervous i have all this gear on yet i just can't wrap my brain around breeding on the water lucky for me nick is there to keep me calm and get me familiar with the tank and equipment i'm now ready to go under once you get over the initial shock of breathing underwater you begin to realize your surroundings and take in the amazing experience i mean snorkeling is one thing but it's a completely different feeling to be completely under the water exploring without the constant need to come up for air in my opinion the best thing about diving is all the stuff that you see and you just kind of never know what you're going to see every time you go in the water you always see something different and it's just exciting and it's a lot of fun i got into diving about 10 years ago um i did the discover scuba course um in jamaica and just got hooked on it and decided to get certified and then about three years ago i decided i wanted to make it a profession so i went and got all my professional ratings became an instructor and came down here to dive st croix is really unique to some of the places we've been diving because we have the wall out here which is basically an underwater cliff it starts at about 40 feet right out here in front of us and drops down to about 3 000 feet so it's a pretty pretty dramatic drop and it's really fun to see there corals here are really healthy and a lot of good life the nice thing about here is the water really is blue not different shades of green lately more and more uh magazine and newspaper people have been coming divers been coming from the states to do articles on on cane bay and on st croix because of the great diving we have here and that in turn brings more divers to the island again we're just in about 30 to 40 feet of water it may not be deep sea diving but believe me the surrounding scenery is absolutely beautiful it's hard to describe what i'm feeling right now i can say it almost feels like a fantasy world the colors beneath the water are so rich and vibrant on this day even though i have on all this gear i feel very free calm relaxed it's one thing to see people scuba dive on television and in the movie it's absolutely different to experience it for yourself gliding effortlessly and touching the rays of the sun as they break through the water i'm having a great time i've been diving for about 18 years it was just something to do you know on the island there's not a whole lot to do so i decided i'd try scuba diving and when i did i just fell in love with it and kept on going and the best thing about diving is all the stuff that you see and you just kind of never know what you're going to see every time you go in the water you always see something different and it's just exciting and it's a lot of fun i really can't imagine my life without diving anymore it's it's uh it's become such a part of me that i don't think i'd ever not dive again there have been several interesting things i've seen so far on this side like this full of fish and this little fella here's something you don't expect to see every day come on you know i couldn't resist remember we're just in one section of the island and again we haven't gone past 40 feet of water if things are so beautiful here imagine what else lies around the island good thing for you we can give you a sneak peek is back on the north side of cane bay and i'm still having a blast oh yeah remember that course i took earlier well trust me it's been coming in handy it's so pretty down here it's hard for me to leave but unfortunately i'm running low on air that means it's time to head back up to the surface and get back on the big island we just got back from our scuba diving adventure and i have to ask nick how did i do underneath the water you did great you look like a scuba diver you got everybody fooled oh cool about how long were we under there we're under for 35 minutes so time really goes by fast when you're looking at all the fishes huh it was great i had a great time i saw a lot of amazing things on there the spotted we saw the christmas tree worm yes it was real cool and the frog fish yeah those are harder good and you know i want to thank you the cane bay dive shop thank you for having me no problem i'm glad you enjoyed it and i'm going to come back okay excellent we'll be here waiting for it all right no problem i didn't expect to have this much fun under the water i'm so glad that i mustered the courage to try scuba diving for now however i'm gonna leave this underwater world alone and do some more exploring on land now some of the underwater footage you saw earlier came from this part of the island is the eastern part of saint croix established in recent years as the east end marine park the saint croix eastern marine park is the culmination of about 40 years of effort to preserve significant natural areas on saint croix it incorporates portions of four different areas of particular concern the great pond apc southgate apc coral reef ecosystem apc and the east end apc today we'll be learning about the section of the park most commonly known as the great pond area let's meet our guide how are you nice to meet you pleasure's all mine i'm john foshetti nice to meet you so what are we doing today mr foshetti well i'm the interpreter ranger for the saint croix croix marine park and uh here is the southwest anchor of the east end marine park okay and basically it's a tidal lagoon that comes in and out with the tides okay and it fills the pond out when the tide goes out the water recedes and that's what we have here there's several uh ecosystems here terrestrial ecosystems are upland okay and they basically protect the uh the wetlands and the coral reef from plastic sediment that runs off during torrential downpours all these plants play a very crucial role in that in that in that task and in particular the mangroves which is the white mangrove the black mangroves in the back and then the red mangroves that are in the water okay and if you'd like to take a look at those we would uh come this way sure before we get to the mangroves here are some interesting jellyfish that have gotten my attention this is the inlet as you can see the sea water is uh coming in and eventually this will all be underwater and you can see the invertebrates in the water this in particular is the upside down jellyfish that's so cool okay what it does it has pneumaticists where it stings zooplankton and phytoplankton and is able to eat them and grab them so if you don't know what you're doing you shouldn't pick these up no no no no but they're called upside down jellyfish because they feed in the upside down position but they swim in this manner and they pulsate to move through the water but once they reach to where they want to lay down and they basically become like a carpet on the ocean floor and just uh consume mostly phytoplankton and zooplankton and the larval stage that come by and um are able to sustain that way when do they usually bite when they they feel that there's well what it is is that they're stingers these here if they're near your your side of your palms and your palm they're okay but once they touch the back side of your hand then it will and it's a slime and those pneumaticists are in there and they inject you that's how they also they also feel they feed exactly okay it's interesting yep but you know it's not that bad um one of their predators is the sea turtle the sea turtle but they don't have many other uh because of the taste and obviously they're seeing as though it's so shallow right now are they you know endangered and with the sea turtles and do they come in to feed well this here moves out in and out with the current so the turtles are able to feed on them once they get outside past the berm with the seagrasses okay the most important thing here though of course is the red mangrove which as you can see the roots are in the in the water it's the only mangrove of the four mangroves within the park that do that and they're like a nursery uh females come and lay their eggs here and then the young ones when they're born are able to run in there and hide from predators that's good so it becomes like a nursery and then eventually as they grow older they get braver and go out to sea okay and then become mature and come back to where they were born to lay their eggs as well and the cycle continues without these crucial ecosystems of course uh the surrounding waters would be endangered they would have to lay their eggs in a high mortality area okay which would then of course diminish the amount of fish stock that we would have so does are the red mangroves affected by the water getting so so shallow uh the water is the mangroves do have a parameter they have where it can get too low and it can get too high they'll drown and they will also die from desiccation but they also have a unique adaptation which is you look at the top those uh those limbs don't have any leaf those are actually roots okay so she's able as long as the water is receding slowly she's able to move through the water and move to areas which is deeper just for horror and survival this is something that they have been available to do as an adaptation the only mangrove in the in the eastern marine park that does that so the red mangroves are very important i can say that tremendously important these on the floor called new metaphors and they're like small little snorkels tops that actually remove gases in this case hydrogen sulfide okay and what they do is uh the tree actually uses the nutrients she's able to do it in a very acid environment because there's a lot of hydrogen sulfide belonging to our feed from all the decomposition okay and from that detritus but then this these pneumatophores actually are like snorkels and they allow for these gases to escape so the plant actually produces oxygen uses carbon dioxide uh works with salt collar it's a salt tolerant plant and at the same time it removes gases it's quite a plant and it's uh we're very lucky to have it within the east end marine park protecting our coral reefs gets rid of all of those things that will harm that's good that's awesome so that other plant underneath there is a salt bush okay and that's actually edible you can put it in just like a salad yeah yeah have you ever tried it oh yeah want to try oh okay okay okay you gotta try it with me okay okay all right it's really good a little salty salt bush it's good though very good okay i'm coming back the salt pond also contains white and black mangroves you can actually see the salt crystals right on top of the leaf and that's that shiny stuff and if i rub it you can actually see it on my thumb here here's a better leaf there we go yeah yeah i do and it's nothing but sea salt it's the best salt for you why is that because it's not iodized okay our salt that we use in the store is iodized and this salt here is not iodized it's fresh mostly calcium carbonate very salty mm-hmm i can see that but um very you know it's not as it's not as harmful as iodized salt and she's flowering which soon she'll start producing uh small seeds and young ones will start coming out of out of this particular plant she's actually in very good shape and all new leaf does the salt damage any of the plants around here because this is black mangrove and it collects here but does it damage any plants around here all plants that are here are adapted to the saline environment or else they wouldn't be able to survive here every plant that you see here now can survive in this environment is specially adapted for living in this environment the deer come and lick these to get the salt off and this is one of the primary uh places and the salt helps the dear yeah the salt uh the deer do that so that they can uh uh primarily is to uh so that they don't dehydrate so they're able to actually uh hold water in their system to hold them over for until they are then it's for dry times when they can't find fresh water the area is also known for the birds that use it as a nesting or resting site attracting many bird watchers thank you along the shoreline as you move east of the salt pond you'll find san antone clay which was used by the pre-colombian people to make pottery actually this probably was at one time underwater fresh water okay because what happens is that the bottom of the of the pond or the lake then gets a uh these very fine sediments in it and then it forms these clay beds which now become impervious to water and water cannot travel through it once the clay bed is formed and that's what makes it such a great uh medium to make the clay pottery we have some of the first potters which were the saladoids from the saladera region of venezuela we have representations of their pottery here which is a red colored clay and it's still seen red to the day of today and they were done 1500 years ago today you paint a house five years later you still got to repaint it their paint can still be seen on their pottery oh yeah from 1 500 years ago and it's organic there are remnants of a windmill and a water mill that dates back to 1750. and right next to the watermill is a pre-columbian mitten according to john these mittens can be found throughout the marine park a caribbean archaeologist he did a level one and a level two uh archaeological survey over at robin's bay and every pottery making indian that came out of venezuela it's represented in robin's bay right here on st croix in the synchro east end marine park that's a special only one percent of the whole world is a coral reef so just to saint croix is so unique that it's surrounded 100 by coral and from the coral reefs initiative uh which we the virgin islands bought into it by creating a marine protected area we now address the issues that corals have the threats to it and of course how we can do a better job of being better stewards of such a great treasure if you know we're totally completely engulfed and surrounded by these corals that protect us against uh waves uh from the and erosion on the shoreline it is something that we need to protect conserved for future generations so that we can have this so the other other people and other our kids in particular can enjoy this what are some ways you guys go ahead and protect the coral reef well it's through management strategies we've actually got no tech areas 100 feet from shore to 300 feet outside the reef there is no extractive uses within the east end marine park this now allows them to procreate and reproduce in such a matter that they are able to migrate to other areas not just the coral but also the uh the fin fish that depends so heavily on the coral for their livelihood and for their habitat thanks to people like john foshetti and other members of the east at marine park we can still enjoy this piece of paradise while connecting to our past but we all have to do more to ensure that it's still around for future generations to enjoy so until the next time cherish your home this beautiful island but most of all cherish each other you