DAY 3 — This morning I woke up to the sound of the ocean. Very pleasant. We started our second day at Middle Caye with some quadrat practice, investigating the crab density on the island. We worked out standards for the whole group to use with the transect tape (100ft) and intervals of quadrats (every 20ft) in order to ensure that our data, collected in six separate groups, would be comparable.

After our land practice, we left the turf and went to the surf for transect practice in the sea grass beds. We were looking at benthic organism diversity, and recorded any sightings of molluscs, crustaceans, algae, echinoderms, cnidarians, annalids, and arthropods in our quadrats. Alessi and I nailed it, and were able to efficiently collect data from the quadrats and spot some cool creatures along the way. We saw some really cool anemone, a conch, and a barracuda.

After lunch, we embarked on the Koolie Gial, with Captain Buck. In the patch reef, we were looking to assess reef health and cover. Alessi and I were both thrilled to see so many representatives of our taxonomic groups, soft corals and sponges, respectively.

Speaking of sponges, I saw some good ones! First and foremost, the Chicken Liver Sponge (Chondrilla caribensis)! A very exciting spot for me.

I also saw rope sponge, probably the Scattered Pore Rope Sponge (Aplysina fulva). Another familiar face, the Branching Vase Sponge (Callyspongia vaginalis) was also on the patch reef today.

Our final reef-related activity of the day was an urchin collection. For 25 minutes, we all swam around the shallow reefs and tried to grab the urchins hiding in little rock crevices. We brought a bucket of urchins back to the island and will measure them tomorrow morning before returning them to their home.