What day is it again?

Today is Wednesday but it doesn’t feel like a Wednesday. I believe that when you are on this island there are only two days that represented in a week, Monday and Saturday. 

Okay those are two very random days of the week to pick but I can explain. Let me just prompt this explanation by saying that I am a college student in the summer. We don’t really know what day of the week it is, we just go by feeling or counting days from the last time you said “OH that’s what day it is, it doesn’t feel like a (insert the day of the week here).”

Out of the two days I mentioned, the most accurate description of my day to day life is that….. it eternally feels like a Monday. (Well most days it does) I know you guys back in Jersey don’t believe that I am on island and I am actually doing work. Trust me there has not been a day I have been here, where we haven’t done some sort of classroom activity and since my last update, my class has done nothing but collect data for other research projects that are going here.  

In fact on Saturday (the day after I posted) the entire class was enlisted in measuring Grouper (a type of reef fish) habitat in a knot and a half current in the South Sound Bay. We were out in the water from 8 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon. We got a chance to eat a quick lunch on Owens Island but shortly after we were ferried out to another bay to collect more Grouper data until dinner time. Needless to say, once everyone had arrived back from that trip, we pretty much all collapsed in the common room and couldn’t do anything too productive for the rest of the night.

The next day we snorkeled Preston bay for another 4 hours to map the topography of the land and to practice our coral id’s. Luckily for us we were able to use the remainder of the day to work on developing our projects. I was torn between three different projects at the time but once I had gotten official word that I could not feasible complete two project ideas I had, I settled on an Ocean Acidification project that I am working on with one of my other classmates. (More information about that will be posted later). During lecture we learned about the Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment and how to perform transects and data collection for this type of research. Little did all of us Rutgers kids know what our professor was signing us up for.

The next day we did a two tank dive one off of a place called Jackson’s Wall and another off a Bloody Bay Wall. Our job was to make 10 meter transects, and record the coral species and algae species that were present at every half meter mark. In addition to this we also had to measure the coral dimensions and at the throughout each transect. We also had to get an idea of population percentage of coral and algae cover so we did a quadrant sampling method. For those of you that are thinking to yourself, “oh that’s not soo bad,” THINK AGAIN. For me this experience was totally dreadful. Now don’t get me wrong, this data is absolutely important and it was awesome to be part of it. However for a girl with buoyancy problems, in a marine park that no one is  supposed to touch any living thing, while hanging upside down while gathering the data, this was a living nightmare. Thankfully we got our work done and were able to get all the transects completed and gathered all the data we needed to complete the field work.

Remember when I said that some days feel like a Saturday? Well yesterday was definitely one of those days.  In the morning ( as per usual) we  were in the water, gathering more Grouper data at a new site. Thankfully my group was very quick and efficient so we got done in about 2 hours. For most of the day, me, my project partner and a few other kids were working on building racks for my acidification project. Again because the students down here are so awesome, we were able to take a four hour job and get done in about 2 hours. Later that night the students were given “the night off.” We spent it with the rest of the CCMI crew at a resort where one of our TA was giving a lecture on coral nurseries. After the lecture, we grabbed drinks and dinner at the same resort. The food was awesome especially because I had two very exotic dishes: salmon and spinach quesadillas and wait for it…….

Lionfish tacos. Basically Lionfish is delicious and I was sad that I only tried a little from another student’s plate. I strongly recommend it and SIDENOTE: Lionfish are an invasive species and you will actually be helping the Atlantic Ocean water by promoting the fishery! Rest of the night obviously was a nice break from the day to day work of the coral reef internship.

Finally today, Tom, (who is my project partner) and I, collected over 36 samples of a certain species of coral to test for our project. Again details will be given later. The rest of the day I spent scrambling trying to make sure I was all brushed up on sixty different identifications of various endemic fish, coral and algae that we were tested on tonight. I just got my grade back and I did pretty well so I guess all that studying paid off.

Well its late now, and I have a wonderful full day of lab work to look forward to tomorrow so I am going to end this entry now.

But first....

 LOOK MOM! I'M DOING SCIENCE! (This was probably the only time I actually felt steady enough to take data and not worry that I was going to crash into part of the reef)

 It appears to me that I am the octopus whisper because this is my second octopus I found during the day. Mind you it is very difficult to find these nocturnal guys, especially because they are masters of disguise. 

Till next time,

Stef