Life at the GRC

Yesterday Otto and I had the opportunity to teach 15 young Bahamians about conservation of the environment. It was a great experience for the 2 of us, as well as the kids. After our talk, we led them on a 25 minute snorkel. The kids new a lot about what they were seeing and seemed very eager to learn about what they did not know.

Today was a lab day. More plant processing for Otto. I worked with some pupfish specimens from one of the inland ponds. During the afternoon we continued work on our plant picture database. We are trying to get photos of as many plants that are found on San Sal as we can. It has been working out really well, and helping us learn our plants too!

2 days left here, it seems like we just arrived. Time sure does fly down here!

Today was our last official day doing the Reef survey. We finished in French Bay in some rough waves. The tide was high at the time so it made hovering over our quadrates a bit easier. While we were out we found a tunnel going underneath one of the reefs. I swam down and through it while Jake took a picture. Then he was too much of a chicken to try it himself. Maybe next time. Anyway, we finished that and began the Mangrove leaf collection in the afternoon. It was pretty hot out again today, like usual. But if feels especially hot when were doing field work outside of the water.

In addition, last night we did a night snorkel. Jake might be able to elaborate a bit more on this as my light died about half way in. But one of the girls from a Florida school got stung by a jelly while she was out. She's OK, just a little welt on the neck.

Mangroves, Pub fish, and Coral reefs

We've been spending a lot of time in the lab lately but we were able to finish off our transects at Dump Reef. We were about two thirds of the way finished when two dogs decided to come out to us and swim through our quadrates. We had to chase them out of the water and keep them out 'til we finished. Jake would take the pictures and count fish while I was on dog watch.

More to come.....

Finally got some pictures to work. We saw these 2 guys when we were out doing some of our coral reef surveys.
Here is Otto swimming with an Ocean Triggerfish.

Bahamas

Well Otto and I have been in the Bahamas for a week now and a blog seemed like a good idea to start. We tried once with pictures and it didn't work out so great, hopefully the 2nd time works out a bit better for us.

We've spent most of the first week snorkeling at various reefs. The first few days were taking video of reef communities and working on learning the names of all the fish and corals.

More recently, Otto and I developed a project to survey the algae/coral/fish community relationships and have been out on the reefs collecting data. I have to admit its pretty nice to be in the water doing the research. Its always just about the right temperature and it seems as though there is something new to see everyday in the reefs.

We have yet to find the pirate gold that is supposedly on the island, but we will update the blog with pictures as soon as we do.

Yesterday we traveled with another group to an inland pond. The pond is saline, with about as much salt as the ocean. What is interesting and exciting about this pond is that there are jellyfish here that are only found in a few places in the world. It was a great experience and something completely different than the past few days.

Today is another coral reef day, we will be on the south side of the island at French Bay for most of the day!

More updates and pictures to come!