Today, I got up at 7:30 and prepared breakfast a breakfast of cereal, fruit, and toast for me and my classmates. After breakfast, I rode a bus to the marina, where I got on the Sea Dragon and rode to our first dive site at a coral nursery. Once in the water, another classmate and I cleaned a PVC tree holding fifty coral branches. We scraped off the algae and hydroids growing on the surface of the tree. Once we cleaned the tree, we swam around in a nearby reef until we ran out of air. After that, I rode to our next dive site. where we worked on our research projects. My research team and I observed fish in environments of varying depth and light level and measured fish coloration and activity. We took four surveys, two under a dark overhang, and two in bright, shallow water. On this dive, my air ran quite low, to around 500 psi. After I finished that dive, we transcribed our data onto a single sheet recording all of our observations. Then, I rode to another place a few hundred yards from shore, where the two boats met and I had sandwiches and chips for lunch. After lunch, I snorkeled to the shore, where I hiked to a salt pond. The salt pond was completely dry, but there were large salt deposits in a white frost on the ground. After that, I snorkeled back to the boat, and rode back to the marina. Once back at the hotel, I met with my research team and compiled our data into a spreadsheet and planned for our next measurements at night. At around 6, I walked down to the beach for a burger cookout. After sunset, my research team and I set out in the bay bordering the beach and swam to some rocks for our two nighttime surveys. However, things did not go as planned as we lost a pencil from one of our writing slates, my fin broke, leaving me with only one fin for swimming, and another person lost their GoPro. Luckily though, we got our data and returned to shore safely and with all of our stuff. Lastly, I returned to my cabin for the night and cleaned my gear.
