Saturday, March 31, 2012

Oh Sweet Poseidon!

Why hello there!  My, it sure has been a while hasn't it?  I apologize for how long it's been since my last post; things have been super busy around here with our Independent Research Projects finishing up (well, the data collection part...), diving to see ostracods spawn, kayaking and snorkeling in mangroves, snorkeling in an Acropora cervicornis thicket, collecting plankton, playing ultimate frisbee against our professors, and spending a week in bed with bronchitis!  Oh, these last few weeks have certainly been quite the adventure, my friends.  It's gonna be a long post fo' sho'. BUT, there will be lots of PICTURES!! YAY!

Hm where to begin, where to begin?  Alrighty, so about three weeks ago we went on a night dive to see these little crustaceans called ostracods spawn.  About five nights after the full moon they bioluminesce (light up) in order to attract a mate or release their gametes (I'm not too sure which one it is...).  Anyway, we took a boat out to this dive site at 7:00 pm, descended into the darkness at 7:30 pm and did not turn our lights on.  After waiting several minutes I turned my head and these little spirals of light began to move towards the surface.  It was like being surrounded by tiny stars while you're floating weightless in the night's sky.  Everywhere I turned little glowing specks were lighting up and spiraling around me.  It was the most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed.  I was in awe the entire time. 
After a good 5-10 minutes of amazingness we continued the dive only to see something equally as cool: glow-in-the-dark corals.  That's right, we had blue lights with us, that if you shine them on certain corals, the corals will fluoresce a color that's a lower wavelength than blue (most of them were that green glow-in-the-dark color).  My buddy, Abbey, and I were holding hands while we were shining the corals with the blue light.  We get a little afraid of the dark sometimes...  But anyway, that was probably my favorite dive yet because oh my gosh it was just so darn cool!  Yeah, I know that was not a very descriptive reason, but you know what I mean.  I am still at a loss for words.  On the boat back after the dive, everyone was just so excited and happy; we all had such a wonderful time!

Ostracods.  We didn't take this picture, but it's like the best one out there to give you some idea of what we saw.  Just multiply those little spots by like 100.

Agaricia agaricites under blue light at night.  Jason Flower, one of the interns, took this picture on our dive!  Isn't it so cool?!

A. agaricites in the daytime.  What a difference!


Montastreaea faveolata under blue light at night.  Jason got this shot, too!

M. faveolata in the daytime.

Let's see...moving along now.  Ah yes, also that week we went on a field trip to the mangroves and seagrasses of Lac Bay.  Lac is basically the only place on the island that has these ecosystems, which serve as prime nurseries for many juvenile fishies, provide nutrients to the adjacent coral reefs, help provide a buffer zone between the land and storm surges, and are unfortunately among the many habitats being destroyed for coastal development.  So I really like these habitats, but I don't particularly enjoy snorkeling in them.  That's only because the water is very turbid (lotsa sediments) and you have to get really close to the mangroves to see anything in them, and by that time they are covering your head and you're face-to-face with a barracuda.  I get a little claustrophobic so I was kinda freaked by the snorkeling.  But, the kayaking was really beautiful; we were led on a tour of the mangroves of Lac via kayak and got to go through these little channels where you would just push yourself forward using the mangroves' prop roots instead of the paddle.  It was always one of my life's goals to kayak through the mangroves and I'm glad to check that baby off my bucket list! 


 Kayaking through the mangroves.  Stole this pic from Wiley Sinkus.  He was the only one to bring a camera on our mangrove adventure.

We're all professional kayakers, obviously.  (Another of Wiley's pictures)


Post-mangrove kayak.  (Photo credit: Jason Flower).

Alright, continuing to the next week... One day we went on a field trip to see an Acropora cervicornis thicket and compare the fish biomass there to that of a location where there used to be this coral, but most of it got destroyed from a hurricane.  A. cervicornis used to be the most abundant shallow water coral in the Caribbean, until white band disease and hurricanes wiped out most populations.  It is now considered an endangered species.  Luckily for our educational purposes there exists one thicket of this coral out in Lac Bay.  We snorkeled there two weeks ago and it was just breathtaking.  We did have to walk about a half mile in waist-deep water to get to it, though.  That was quite the workout, let me tell you.  But once we got there it was such a treat to explore its many branches and nooks and crannies.


A. cervicornis (also known as Staghorn coral).  (Photo credit: Juli Schroger).


Another thing we did that week was collect tons and tons of plankton and larval fish from Lac Bay.  We went out at night during the new moon and set up light traps and had plankton catching nets in which we collected lotsa little fishies and plankton.  Most of the time one person stood about knee-deep in water (song reference yay yayee) holding a flashlight into the water while another person had a big net that they fished up tiny plankton every once in a while and dropped them off into a collection bucket on land.  We also used a plankton tow collection thingy attached to the end of a fishing rod, so we would cast it off into the water and reel it back in.  Well, due to my impeccable fishing skillzz, when I cast off the plankton tow, the line broke and the tow was out in the middle of the water.  Surprise there, I know.  But, being the superhero that I am, I jumped in and rescued the tow before it was left to ol' Poseidon's mercy.  After that little adventure, we continued to collect plankton, showed some of the local people what we were doing, and did a lot of sitting around.  I mean, you can only collect so many plankton, right?  The next day we took our samples to the lab and examined them under the microscopes; that was pretty cool! 

Everyone's pretty enthralled in all the plankton they're catching!  Check out the headlamps; super intense, I know. (Photo credit: Jason Flower).

Hard-core plankton identification in the lab. Here are Jules and Hilary.  (Photo credit: Fadilah Ali).

Continuing with all of the fun that's been going on 'round hurr, last Friday all of us with CIEE (students, staff, interns, families, pets, etc) gathered at a local baseball field for some good ol'fashioned competitive fun, Ultimate Frisbee style.  It was students versus staff, and things got pretty intense.  Within the first round we had one black eye and one scraped knee (not on the same person, thankfully!).  Needless to say everyone was really competitive, but in a light-hearted way.  It was just really fun for all of us to blow off some steam and to play against our professors!  In the end, the staff ended up winning (dangit...) but it was all in good fun!

Now, getting to this past week.  Unfortunately, both Hilary and I came down with quite the assortment of pulmonary diseases and have been incapacitated for the whole week.  I hardly left CIEE property (let alone my room) for days.  At the end of the week we both finally made it to the doctors (we're both kinda stubborn and thought we were getting better...) and are now on antibiotics and are on the path to recovery.  Don't worry, we're OK!!  But, to ensure that we do not infect everyone else, we are currently residing in an apartment that is next to our resident director's house.  It is fully equipped, except for a TV (oh no whatever will we doooo!).  I have to admit, it's almost nice being away for a little while.  And, the front porch overlooks the water, so I can't really complain. 

The view from our illness isolation apartment.  Just remember that I've been sick for a week so I don't exactly look my best or know how to interact with the outside world anymore...

Anyway, I'm just looking forward to getting back into the swing of actual school and stuff (oh gosh what has gotten into me?!) because we only have FIVE SHORT WEEKS LEFT.  It's crazy to think of how fast time flies here, but as the saying goes, it's because I've been having so much fun!  I do miss everyone back home and look forward to returning to little ol' Narragansett, but I want to make sure I'm healthy enough to really enjoy the rest of my time on this incredible island. 

Well, I hope y'all enjoyed this rather long post, but hey, at least I broke up some of my narrative with beautiful pictures!! 

Sending lots of love from the Caribbean,
Catalina

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