Inter Tidal Tuesday

Today we roused from our sleep ready for another day on San Salvador. To get the day started some of us went on an early morning hike before breakfast to catch the sunrise coming up over the ocean. As the pictures show, it was quite the sight.

After that we finalizing our group research projects by touching up methods, focusing our questions, and figuring out where we wanted to go. To finalize our group projects each group met with Professor Behrens to get his input on what should be changed and how we should move forward with the project. After meeting with him, we spent the rest of the time relaxing or working on our figure analyses until lunch. After we ate, we all presented our research projects to the rest of the class. Projects ranged from measuring urchin concentration vs damsel fish concentrations to measuring sea fan abundance compared to gorgonians on different sides of reefs. After our presentations, we split up to start gathering data.

The groups measuring sea urchins went out to a reef called the dump where we saw a large angelfish, more barracuda, large sea stars, and a group of squid. Sadly, not a single sea urchin was found though.

Derek, Katie, and Kate went out to rocky point with Dr. Ellard-Ivey (where we meet our dolphin friends last week) and did some Sea Fan and Gorgonian sampling. It took us about 15 minutes to swim out to the reef, but the 6 Lb weight we were carrying didn't help. Nevertheless, we end up seeing a very large southern stingray, along with some other impressively sized fish and collecting quality data. Derek did end up washed up on the shore tangled in the measuring tape, it was a rocky landing.
 


Drew & Kate


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