Research

Since directed research started, I have pretty much just been in the water as long as the sun is up. I've dove every day for the last four days, racked up three and half hours of bottom time, and spent the rest of the day snorkeling. I really just come back to the center for lunch and then its back out in the water again. Our directed research project has 12 students working on it, broken into three groups, 4 people per transect line, so we can do three at each site. I'll keep the description of what we are doing simple. We take the boats out to a site, and an intern (using scuba) begins to lay a 50 meter length of transect tape along the bottom. As the tape is being laid, two snorkelers follow the intern on the surface, and record what species of fish are within a 5 meter wide belt along the line, and their size classes. After that, two more students, scuba diving, record observations of various cover and topographical features, as well as measuring coral dimensions. This process takes around an hour, and we trade off between diving and snorkeling in our four person group. 

I love the research dives. They are awesome even though we are doing a lot of work, and it is hard to control your buoyancy at the ~25 foot depth that we work at, especially when you are using a slate to record data and a measuring tape. I like being able to see these shallow reef areas from a divers perspective. Normally I only get to see them close up when I am free diving during a snorkel trip, and I can only stay down there a short period of time, and the fish are startled and do not display normal behavior. It is really cool to watch them return to their normal business, and watch the cleaning stations, territorial fish, paired fish, feeding behavior, all sorts of cool things.

Yesterday we didn't do any research, but we had a fun dive at East Bay Spur, where we saw a couple sea turtles. Then more filming for our coral reef movie project in the afternoon, and then cleaning boats. As far as life outside of the water goes, it is also pretty awesome. An ice cream shop opened in town, and they have delicious homemade ice cream. The mosquitoes are getting a little better and the nights are getting cooler, I am actually using a sheet when I sleep now. An alum donated a foosball table to the center, so that is really cool, something new to do. If I get back early enough before dinner I can watch the lionfish group dissect their catch from the day. I haven't been fishing myself as much lately, but me and some friends were having good luck fishing off a jetty just west of the center, using conch scraps from the fishermen as bait. I actually caught two yellowtail snappers on the same line at one time before the hurricane. Here is a picture of me diving from about a week ago, checking out the remains of a crashed drug plane.