Bahamian Reef Survey with Mr. Garrison

Sunday morning

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:16:00 +0000

The trip home was long and uneventful, except for getting searched in the airport. After flying for several hours, we drove through rain to get home, we unloaded the car in the rain, we listened to rain all night long, and it is still raining this morning. I am cold, wet, and already missing the reef research and the friends I made on the trip. This morning I attempted to upload all of the comments that others have written but there is some technical difficulty that the Earthwatch technician will have to resolve before I can post all of your comments. I want to thank Earthwatch for this opportunity and I want to thank all of you who have followed and participated in this blog. I will continue to blog as I return to school and engage students in the follow-up activities that I have planned.

Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:07:00 +0000

This is my last blog from San Salvador Island. Tomorrow morning I will pack, get in a plane and return to Virginia. Thursday afternoon we collected data from a site on the northern side of the island called Rice Bay. Rice Bay was very rough and the water tossed us around like corks while we attempted to count species under the intersections of our P-I (point-intercept) frames. We found thousands of algae plants and less than 50 coral plants under the intersections of the P-I frames. This means that the reef is not healthy; the algae out competes the coral for nutrition and if the situation does not change the reef might die. I am saddened to know that the many reefs around San Salvador are in trouble and are not as healthy as they were just 10 years ago. I am saddened and I wonder what we might be able to do to help the reefs become healthy again. Do you have any ideas about what we can do to help the reefs become healthy again?

Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Wednesday afternoon was fantastic as Julie and I teamed up and snorkeled to a reef just inside Man Head Cay (pronounced key). The Cay, a small island, was far enough off shore that a couple of the researchers bet that we would not make it to the Cay. Not only did we make it but we found the most beautiful and dramatic reef of the entire trip. This reef was more beautiful and dramatic because of all of the rugosity. Look up what rugosity means when used with coral reefs and then I will describe it in better detail. The reef had lots of fish and had some of the biggest and best looking coral we have seen. Before we swam to the small island we did more beach surveys and collected another set of data to determine the amount of beach erosion taking place on the North end of San Salvador. Next week, I will share the technique for collecting the data and show you how we can graph the data and see the profile of the beach. I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving day.

noreply@blogger.com (Earthwatch Institute: Live from the Field) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:43:00 +0000

Lindsay's Reef

Wednesday's blog

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:14:00 +0000

Tuesday we put our training to use and collected data on Lindsay’s Reef on the East side of the island. Two of the teams ran the transect lines and made observations along a meter-wide path from one end of the line to the other. The other two teams tossed the PI frames onto different sections of the reef and counted organisms and aspects of the habitat at the intersections. My team tossed the PI frames and we looked for hard coral, soft coral, algae, sponges, rock, sand, and other. What do you think we found at most of our intersections? What ratios do you think we found? I will share the results with you when I return to school next week.

Tuesday morning

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 11:29:00 +0000

Monday afternoon we went on a practice and identification dive at Telephone Pole Reef. We swam 150 yards out to a reef and observed fish, dove down for closer views of the coral, and then asked the leader if we had identified the coral correctly. We also swam out to The Wall where the island shelf descends into the 6000 foot deep abyss. The Wall is a vertical drop off so when you are swimming over The Wall you are looking down at 50 foot deep water with sand on the bottom and then there is just deep blue water that continues down as far as the eye can see.

Monday morning

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:18:00 +0000

We began our official training on Sunday. We learned how to use the tools for measuring and tracking the coral. We snorkeled and started learning how to identify different types of coral while underwater, a fairly difficult thing to do. Last night we had a 2 hour class on coral identification which included hundreds of slides. I don’t know how I will be able to remember all the different types of coral: Mustard-hill, Stubby-finger, Deadman’s finger, etc. Students, look up and identify 10 types of hard corals of the Carribbean. Look up their pictures and list some identifying characteristics and make a poster for our class when I return (1 poster for each class).

Sunday Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 10:39:00 +0000

Students:
We did not get to snorkel on Saturday because the wind was blowing too hard from the North. I estimate the wind strength to be around 15mph with gusts up to 25mph. I would like all students to research and come up with an explanation for why we had such strong winds from the North.

The trip has begun!

noreply@blogger.com (Greg) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 04:39:00 +0000

Students,

I left Sperryville earlier today with the wind blowing hard and all of us bundled up against the 30 degree temperature. I just finished walking around my hotel in short sleeves and never felt chilled. Tomorrow I get up very early to catch my flight to Nassau and then another flight to San Salvador Island. I would like all students to calculate the compass directions and distances of each section of my trip.

Test

noreply@blogger.com (Earthwatch Institute: Live from the Field) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:52:00 +0000

Test