Field Exercises are finally over!

Hey,

Yesterday was quite the day. In the morning we went seahorse hunting in Bell Sound. Turns out the water there is FREEZING. None of us wore our wetsuits because we figured the shallow water (3 feet-ish) would be relatively warm. Well we were horribly wrong. We all had goosebumps and chattering teeth by the time we were done. We started out by using quadrats. Ours were 1m x 1m squares made with PVC. There were strings strung on the inside of the PVC to make a grid (10 x 10 squares). You swim along and randomly place the quadrat over the substrate and, using the string squares, estimate percent cover for each type of substrate. We mostly saw seagrass, macro algae, and sand but we were looking for those plus sponges, coral, and turf algae. After we did that, we swam around for a half hour looking for seahorses. Unfortunately no one in our group saw any. Only one group the entire day saw a seahorse which was kind of sad. I think because of our disappointing morning, the professors decided to spice things up in the afternoon.

In the afternoon we went on manta tows. We were in pairs and held onto this board that was being dragged behind the boat. As we were being towed, the first 3 minutes we had to count as many Nassau grouper as we saw (we didn't see any) and for the second 3 minutes we had to count conch. It may sound easy, but the board doesn't float on its own so you have to try to tip it up the entire time, otherwise it takes you under the water. Only two groups had problems with this: mine and my friend Katie's. It was very entertaining. After that, we did behavioral observations. We had to pick a surgeonfish and a parrotfish (one at a time) and follow each for 10 minutes, marking down every time they took a bite of something. Apparently fish are incredibly hungry organisms because in those 10 minutes, both our fishes took over 200 nibbles of things. We ended up losing our surgeonfish twice so we had to start over. We stayed with our parrotfish the whole time, but he did NOT like the fact that we were following him. It reminded me of Dori in Finding Nemo when Marlin is following Dori at the beginning 'cuz she said she saw a boat. But anyways, our parrotfish kept darting around and hiding under ledges, but we stayed with him.

Last night we finally got to go turtleing. Turns out I will never go again. We saw a turtle within like 5 minutes of jumping in the water and chased it for a good 10 minutes, but when Devon, our staff member, dove down to get it, the turtle bolted and we lost him. After that we were lost and Devon couldn't figure out how to get back to the boat. Katie and I took charge and lead us back, but not before Devon had us swimming all over the place. Because we spent the rest of the time trying to get back to the boat, we didn't get a turtle. One of the groups did get a turtle though so when we got back to the boat, there was a turtle on there for us to see. To keep them calm, you lay them on their backs. We had to wait for the third group to get back because they were chasing a turtle for 20 minutes before they lost it. When they came back, their staff member, Christine, had caught a baby nurse shark so we got to see a week old shark up close. Once everyone was on the boat, we "worked up" the turtle. We took down his tag numbers and different measurements of his shell. At this point I felt bad for the turtle and wanted to throw him back. He did not like being handled and tried to bite and smack everyone that came near him. People were getting their pictures taken with him, but I just wanted him to get back home. (I now know I could never do any testing on animals, even if it helps them in the long run....I just feel too bad). After the turtle was finally put back in the water I was happier and we got to touch the shark which was cool. It was a little boy and director Steve said he was between a week and a month old. It was the smallest shark all of us had ever seen. Only Steve had seen sharks smaller than that one. After we let the shark go, we came back, it was like 10:00 pm.

Today we just had a study day. Turns out I have a massive case of senioritis and am having a hard time studying. Don't worry mom, I'll end up studying eventually. I just have 3 more tests to go in my college career!!! Well, that's about it for now.

Love,
Michelle