Day 10

Woke up this morning to a light breeze and pink skies. I really need to beat the sun one morning and watch the sunrise in full form! But even the endings are beautiful.

Another beautiful sight was the reefs we dove today! We set out early on the big boat 'Banana Wind' on the south side of the island. First we dove at coral city. The class took more transect measurements (we are building a big data file) and also orbicella annularis bleaching measurements with the coral health reference cards. We happened across 6 lionfish while we were down there, and while they are beautiful, they are a very harmful invasive species. So its always mixed feelings when we see them.

Photo credit: Jenn Riling
Two students (Emma and Jenn) taking a selfie on one of their dives

After coral city we boated over to lucas ledge. The class took more transect and bleaching measurements here and even had a little time afterwards to swim around and explore the reef. We saw lots of colorful fish and corals. Its aweomse seeing the students starting to recognize different corals and learn their names!

We made it back in time for a late lunch which we followed with a little time to relax.

Once the afternoon rolled around we all gathered and went over how to process and organize all the data the students have accumulated so far. They will be using this data to analyse the proportion of the different categories (coral, algae, soft coral etc.) at each reef.

Im spending the rest of my evening finishing up some work while some of the class is at trivia. Hopefully they do well against the locals!

- J