The Mangrove Trees Made us Coco-nuts



 Hello all,

Welcome backšŸ„³ The morning started off fantastic, with our favorite breakfast of fluffy french toast topped with a brown sugar mixture, sausage, and an electric blue drink. It was so good, it made Mike stop his fast and eat breakfast for the first time since we’ve been here! Wow!

French toast (Morgan got hungry)

From there, we headed to Pigeon Creek, where we set off to study a Mangrove Forest. Mangrove Forests are found in estuaries and are nurseries for reef fish. While we were looking at the forest, we saw fish such as barracuda, school masters, and glass fish, sergeant major, and needle fish. After, we took a short land break to warm up, as the water was very chilly. 

Snorkeling at Pigeon Creek 

After our break, we got back into the water to survey the sea grass beds, adjacent to the Mangroves. We used quadrats to calculate percent cover of two species of seagrass—turtle and manatee grass. While swimming through the seagrass bed, we saw some cool creatures, such as a ginormous stingray, lionfish, sea cucumber (donkey dung lol), anemone, and many other amazing looking fish. 

Lionfish 

After our survey, we hoped back into the backless tiny truck to start the long journey to the research center. We stopped for lunch at Monument Beach. Today’s field lunch included sandwiches (pb&j or turkey and cheese), carrots, and a found-on-the-beach coconut Sophia tried to open. Sophia failed, among others, so Mike swooped in to finish the job. After that, we stopped for ice cream at Wendy’s, before finally getting back to the field station. 


Mike and the coconut 

The rest of the night was uneventful. Dinner was chicken and rice, corn, and pickled beets and onion (with a bright orange drink). Following dinner, we had class. We discussed our latest research paper, which compared terrestrial forests to marine soft coral communities. Today was a long day, so everyone is off to bed, as Morgan and Toby sit in the classroom to finish this blog. 

Goodnight my brothers,

M&T

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