Blog Post #10

Day 10: Under the Sea

Written on May 24^that 7:17 pm

Life is better, down where it’s wetter, take it from me! If you couldn’t tell, I’m really loving Glover’s Reef!

For our first full day, we took lots of transect tape data! First, we practiced with leaf coverage on the path. Then we moved into the seagrass bed and counted sandworm mounds. Finally, we went out to two different patch reefs–one in the Marine Protected Area and the other out of it.

This gave me a wonderful opportunity to spot lots of sponges. I saw several that I couldn’t ID in the water since they didn’t come up during my research. I did see one large vase sponge that had some baby fish damselfish and butterfly fish swimming inside of it!

We spent three hours out on (or in) the water. Sam has been my snorkel buddy, and I really love working with him! He is also super interested in all the cool pieces of the reef.

Javier and Rose are our marine safety officers, and they have eagle eyes! Javier spotted a Caribbean Sea squid and a sea snake (gray, long, and white polka-dotted)in the same 15 minutes. It was really cool that I was close enough to see them. I also spotted a few crabs, some new coral, and some flamingo lips on the sea fans.

I really just love being in the water–maybe I am a secret daughter of Poseidon…

Adrienne, Scott says I’m like you since I get energized by being the water, and I almost slept through lunch when I was on land.