Lee Stocking Island -- Perry Institute

This morning we were idly watching other boats leave the anchorage when we saw one run aground. It was a falling tide and the boat was a monohull so throughout the morning we have watched as the boat has gone from nearly upright to laying almost on its side (at a 45 degree angle). The crew will have to wait until the tide rises again (in five or six hours) to be able to get going again. All the other boats in the area are happy to help but at this point there is nothing that can be done except to wait.

At 9am we made our way over to the Perry Institute for Marine Research for a tour of the facilities. The institute does all sorts of research on coral, lobster, aquaculture, and other marine life. It is supposed to be funded by the US Government, but this year apparently funds are short so not many projects are going on. The coral tank was interesting, our guide has been working on a project to grow coral specimens and so he was full of information about the different species, how they grow, and how they are impacted by changes in the environment. I both love and hate guided tours. I love hearing someone explain their life's work, but there is always some guy in the group who thinks he is on his own personal tour and keeps interrupting by peppering the guide with questions every two minutes. He's the type of guy where when the tour guide asks a question directed at children, such as "I have a question for our schoolkids: what gas do plants produce?" he (despite being more than sixty) shouts out the (incorrect) answer: "CO2!". The correct answer, which was then pointed out by an 11 year old girl, is "oxygen". Anyway despite Mr. Obnoxious it was a really good tour. My favorite part was when they showed us the hyperbaric chamber which is used to treat SCUBA divers with the bends. It is the only one in the Exuma Islands and has room for one to two people inside. Hopefully they never have to use it. Apparently they have a small two-man submarine as well but that was not included on the tour.

Btw, we did discover that the moorings here are well-made (screwed into the ground as opposed to a concrete block) and inspected annually. Our guide said he's heard all sorts of stories of moorings from Little Farmer's dragging, so I guess we were not the first.