Lionfish Sampling Day 9: End of the road

Today was a pretty epic day on the water. It is Saturday and the weather was perfect, so there were a ton of boats on the water today. Fortunately, none of them wanted to dive or fish in the same spots we were diving. We only had 2 sites to finish. It wasn't too difficult, but we did spend over three hours at each location. Each pair of divers spent almost an hour an a half on the bottom doing our surveys. We had a tough time finding graysby, so that was part of what took us so long. 

We saw a whole lot of cool things from the surface. We saw a sailfish jump out of the water super close to the boat. That was AWESOME! The water was also so calm and clear that we could see the other pair of divers on the bottom while we were sitting in the boat. It was a pretty incredible day on the water. 

This trip has been quite memorable overall. The general attitude has been extremely positive. Everyone was very organized and kept everything running smoothly. We worked together extremely well, staying on top of data, and working together like a well-oiled machine. This has been an extremely positive experience & I have learned a great deal. I have continued to hone my skills as a research diver, gotten to drive a boat, and generally had a god time working closely with a group of higly inteligent, highly motived marine scientists. Yay field reasearch!!!