All Sunburnt Somewhere

Today it was hard to wake up after yesterday's long adventures in the sun, but we were all very excited to visit the reef that we have heard so much about in our previous night's reading. After some pancakes and bacon we meet up in the lab to gather our equipment and prepare for another day under the sun and ocean. Before heading out in the trucks we had to check up on our tadpole friends that live in the freshwater cleaning station. If you were wondering, they're alive and well, still very easy to catch.

We then drove out to Telephone Pole Reef, which, if you were wondering, is named due to the telephone poles on the side of the street across from the beach. We were lucky to be able to visit this reef today, as the wind was not supposed to be on our side. Today was the farthest we've swam out so far, and we saw a lot of amazing marine life, including urchins, yellow stingray, multiple types of corals, rainbow parrotfish, and both initial and terminal stage stoplight parrotfish, which we learned a lot about in class last night. Dr. Behrens also showed us types of coral that we read about in our article yesterday. We finished up at the beach transcribing notes that we took on our slates in the water.

Urchin

Yellow Stingray

Cowfish

After we finished transcribing, we headed out to Columbus point for lunch. There we sat around on the beach eating our field lunches enjoying the sun. We learned that the spot we were at was thought to be the exact spot where Columbus had first landed in the new world. At the point was also the monument where the Olympic flame first came to America for the Olympics set in Mexico. After a bit more rest and picking up some more snacks at the snack shack, we made our way to a fossilized reef. There we observed all different types of corals and shells imprinted in to the stone. Ranging from shrimp tubes to chitin, distinct shapes were seemingly chiseled into the stone we walked on. Even after years of wear on the reef, tiny polyps were still visible on the fossilized brain coral. Along the reef we also saw little hermit crabs and snail hanging out in some more wet areas. On the way back to the station we stopped at a store called Wendy's for ice cream, however they were all out as the barge had yet to come to restock. It was quite sad.

We returned to our rooms to rest for a few hours before dinner, and most of us either took naps or worked on the assignment due in the morning. Dinner was delicious as always! We plan to finish the night off with class time and then some games with an early bedtime.

-Hannah, Kate, and Drew