Tropical Marine Ecology - San Salvador, Bahamas

Literally almost out of my Marshallese coconut oil. I DO NOT KNOW WTF WE FUNNA DO ONCE ITS OUT. The bar then night swimming sounded pretty great at the moment, but went wrong and ended w/ a jellyfish sting. Shannon was in the worst pain ever and some of us tried peeing (I missed) on her toe to relieve her of her pain. Payola and I didn’t know it was a myth at the time, but anything to make Shannon think she’s getting better. This beach was right across the research center it is now deemed the box jelly beach for Shannon. After a shower we were knocked out at I think 12-1am..not too shortly after it was already 8:30 am and we headed out to telephone pole. As we assessed the waves (more so Mike) we decided telephone pole was not the place to snorkel…the waves weren’t passing the vibe check. We went to somewhere closer and got some really cool conch shells, some more cooler than others. Morgan and Abby watch your backs 🎯.    Those shells need to be kept in a lockbox or some shit...

  Hello loyal blog followers!! Today was another beautiful day at Gerace complete with yummy food, lots of snorkeling, and turtle spottings. We started the morning with a delicious breakfast of pancakes and bacon to fuel us for our trip to Rocky Point. We attempted to go yesterday and the waves were too intense but not today!! We saw lots of parrot fish, surgeon fish, and some we have yet to identify. Time to hit the books! We also were tasked with observing the sea fan distribution across the reef and found they were much more dense on the edges of the reef. We took some notes, played in the water, and packed up our gear. The group wasn’t quite done snorkeling so we made another stop at the collapsed pier on the way back. And thank goodness we did because we spotted a sea turtle feeding on some sea grass and a huge sting ray!!  We made it back just in time for a lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup. The group split up in the afternoon to work on figure analyses. Some found...

Monday, Jan 13  We began our 2nd day at Gerace with breakfast at 7:30am of eggs, bagels, and oatmeal. As we ate, Mike informed us we needed to be in the truck, ready to go by 8:30am. We hoped to go to snorkel at Rocky Point, but the conditions were rough and not suitable for us beginners.  Mike investigating the conditions at Rocky Point.  We then went with our backup plan of snapshot! We snorkeled at the reef for about an hour. We found lots of chromis fish, parrot fish, and a burr fish!  The reef at Snapshot. Blue Tang Surgeonfish.  Burr fish (pufferfish). After returning from snorkeling, the group enjoyed a lunch of burgers and fries, then were assigned our first figure analysis. Some chose to work on the assignment in the classroom, then go to the beach afterwards, while others worked on the figure analysis at the Collapsed Pier down the street.  The collapsed Navy Pier at Graham’s Harbor. Famous for sea turtle sightings (when you have snorkel gear)....

Our first official day!   We woke up for our first breakfast here at the Gerace Research Center and a group of us headed to town to attend mass at the Holy Savior Catholic Church with Mrs. Gerace herself. It was a very warm, welcoming mass and once we arrived back at the research center we loaded the truck and headed off to start our tour of the island. We were able to see the schools and beautiful houses and stopped along the way to take a quick look around the beautiful beaches we passed. We all agreed to take our lunch at Grado Beach which, in my opinion, was one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. Once we set up, we made our own sandwiches for lunch to fuel up for the snorkeling we had ahead.  After our first snorkel and time well spent playing in the surf, we continued our tour around the island, dodging potholes and branches along the way. Our next stop was at the telephone pole reef, where we hopped into our snorkel gear again and ventured out to the buoy...

Dear adoring fans, What a day this has been. We started off the day with hopes of sleeping on our flight to Miami, but these hopes were crushed for most of us, with the average time slept being around 45 minutes (if you were lucky). Despite the delays and our time crunch of a layover in Miami, we just made it to our flight to Nassau. After landing in Nassau, we had a lengthy layover, during which many people chose to scope out the Dunkin Donuts, and Mike taught the group how to play a new game called Quinto (it should be known that it is quite a challenge to learn a new game while sleep deprived). Quinto layed the groundwork for several more games played after going through security, in which 2 members of our group almost slept through the boarding process, but like the rest of the day, we made it.  Once we landed in San Salvador, all of us filled with a healthy combination of excitement and nerves, we loaded our gear (and ourselves) onto one of the Gerace trucks, and enjoyed our f...

Exam and flight day! Our last day on campus for the month of January started with our first and only exam for Tropical Marine Ecology! We all arrived just before 11 am and collaborated on the knowledge or lack of knowledge on the lectures. Mike graciously allowed us 7 minutes to crowd together and talk about the exam questions and start to answer them. We rapidly fired off possible answers and crossed our fingers we would remember them. After about 12 pm, we were all finished and did a MASSIVE debrief in the rieke hallway. Some of us were satisfied and some were frustrated. Mike will decide our fate with his classic purple pen on our flights to San Salvador! After our treacherous exam this morning, all students and staff finished last minute packing. Mike urged us to take covid tests, and all were negative! We met at the American Airlines area and trekked through check in, luggage, and security together. All went incredibly smoothly! We now sit at the terminal D9—chatting, playing game...

  Monday Day one!! We gathered for the first time as a class in Rieke where we looked at photos from past trips (stirring up excitement and some nerves), talked about logistics, and went over some basic information regarding marine environments and the basics of ecology. We answered questions like how the ocean is different from terrestrial environments (plot twist: it’s more than just one has water!), what are coral reefs (different than coral reef communities!), and how abiotic factors affect marine communities. The class was also convinced to take the exam before leaving so study plans were made and procrastinators began to panic. After the lecture, we got a few hours of break, then headed to the pool for snorkeling practice. We all tried on our gear, practiced swimming with our snorkels and fins, and diving down to the bottom of the pool. Class snorkeling practice in the pool! Tuesday Mike began the day by spending nearly a full hour showing us pictures from previous years and ...

As I look outside at another rainy day in the PNW, my heart is warmed by memories of warm sun and winds on my face in the Caribbean. As the calendar gets closer to the new year, it means we are headed back to San Salvador. For me it is filled with past memories of the place and the students I get to share it with. This year will be a whole new batch who will learn about tropical marine habitats and themselves. Sunburns will be soothed, laughs will be uncontrolled and new friendships will be made. I can't wait to introduce Abby, Angie, Cooper, Francine, Kailee, Kennedy, Logan, Madi, Morgan, Paola, Shannon, Sophia, Toby, and Zoe to the place and the people that feel like a home away from home. Please follow us along our adventures  

  We woke up this morning in the Atlanta hotel bright and early, excited to start our final stretch home! At 8:00 AM we met in the lobby to venture over to the very popular Waffle House. The server took our names down for our tickets…. Except Amy who was deemed the name of “adult”. After filling our bellies with delicious food we walked back over to our hotel to pack our bags and head down to the shuttle! 10 out of the 15 of us were able to make it onto the first shuttle while the other five waited at the hotel. While we waited for the rest of our group to join us we sat and talked about our favorite parts of our wonderful time in San Salvador. We then took the train to gate F instead of enduring the 25 minute walk. Once we got to our gate, with not much time to spare, half of our group got the much anticipated Starbucks, while the rest hung out around our gate.  Before our over five hour flight, Julian needed to stretch out due to airplanes not being very conscious of 6’6” in...

Our time on San Salvador, and in the Bahamas in general, has officially come to an end! Most are extremely excited to head home, while others are having mixed emotions and will miss the less than 2 minute walk to the beach and the sun. Our last GRC breakfast consisted of pancakes, ham slices, oatmeal, and orange juice. We then spent the rest of the morning packing, sharing our excitement to see family and friends, and triple checking that we didn’t leave anything behind. We said our final farewells to the rooms and dorm and headed down to the pavilion to weigh our bags at 11:30 am! While a small group, including the boys, Sarah, Jordan, and Amy spent their last few minutes on the beach! Mike weighed our bags and we did some resituating of our goodies to stay under the 50 pound checked bag weight limit. Then we all loaded up the truck with our luggage and sat down for an early lunch of hotdogs. After lunch we jumped into the truck and tried (and failed) to recreate our first group photo...