June 1: Getting it under control???

June 1, 2013: Day 2 of work-Today a variety of different projects needed to get completed in very shallow areas. In order to get to shallow water everyone needed to take the small, inflatable boats. This meant that they couldn’t take anyone with them who wasn’t necessary. Since I’m still learning, I wasn’t necessary. Therefore, I spent the morning snorkeling in the seagrass beds near the vessel. I worked on taking pictures with my camera & tried to take pictures of every coral I saw. As well as just messing around & snorkeling.

Marcy, the cook jumping off the bow

Kevin, a coral biologist seconds before getting ropeburn on his knees...

Monatstria annularis- can see transect chain

Siderastria sideria

Rose Coral:Manacina areolata

Later in the afternoon, we moved over to another pair of sites and I was able to do a couple of practice transects. I identified, measured & counted stony corals along 2 transects at the loggerhead station. There are very few colonies at this location. Along the first station, I counted and measured a total of 8 colonies. They were primarily PPOR, but MANN, AAGA were there as well. I compared data with Rob, the other researcher also surveying this site & we were pretty close. I measured everything that he had measured and the sizes were pretty similar. On the second transect, there were a number of ACER, along with PPOR, MANN, AAGA, DCLI, and DSTR. I did a pretty good job on this one as well. I’m learning to identify the different species that are here as well as learning to measure. Making progress.

Reef Squid hanging around site.