Life on the Island

Edited 3/01/09: The photos are the outside of the San Salvador airport, and a view of the ocean/plant life while driving along a road on the island.

Live from San Salvador…it’s Mrs. Buki!
I have arrived safely in San Salvador. I’ve been here since Saturday afternoon, but unfortunately, the internet is not as available here as it is back home! So I may not update every day, but I will try to!
As many of you predicted, life here on San Salvador is different than it is back home! I arrived at the San Salvador airport, which is very small – about the size of a house! When we landed, we were met by the principal investigator of the Bahamian Reef Survey, John Rollino. My classes read about him in the article – remember?? Mr. Rollino loaded us up into our ride to the Gerace Research Center. Our “ride” is a big open bed truck – we sit on benches in the open air in the back of the truck. It took about 20 minutes on a bumpy road to get to the Gerace Research Center. We ate lunch (the food is not bad!) and we were able to get into our rooms. Most of you predicted I would have to share a room, but actually there are only 4 teachers and 2 scientists on this project, so we each get our own room which is nice! The research center used to be a US Naval Base, but now it is owned by the College of the Bahamas. The buildings are old and not very fancy, but all functional!
Saturday and Sunday we have mostly used our time to learn and practice our snorkeling skills. We have to travel in the back of the trucks along the island road to get to the different snorkeling sites. Each area of the island has a different name – Lindsey’s Reef, Rocky Point, French Bay, and many others. Snorkeling is a lot of fun, but you do have to get used to the feeling of breathing with a snorkel and swimming with fins on! You have to be very careful not to touch all of the living things that make up the reef – some can hurt you, but mostly we can hurt them! Corals are actually animals but they do not have the complicated structures that we commonly associate with animals. In the last 2 days, we have seen a lot of different types of corals, a lot of algae – and of course, fish! My favorites are the colorful fish like blue tang, butterfly fish, and surgeonfish. Oh – and today while we were snorkeling, we saw a barracuda! Hmm..do a little research if you don’t know why this might have been a little scary at first! We have also had to learn what to do incase we see a shark – DON’T PANIC! Hmm…I think that is easier said than done! Chances are we won’t see any sharks…..
Today we had to learn about the different types of reef cover so that tomorrow we can start collecting data. The types of reef cover we are looking for are hard coral, soft coral, sponges, algae, rock, sand, and “other”. “Other” could be anything else we find on the reef – like crabs, fish, and shark J
Since the internet can’t be used very often here, I can only post a few pictures. They are at the bottom of the post. I will have a lot more pictures to show you when I get home, but here are a few so that you can see how things are going on San Salvador. The pictures are of the research center (and truck) and me after snorkeling! Students – if the pictures do not show up at school, tell a teacher and perhaps they can ask someone to look into the problem.
CHALLENGE QUESTIONS:
1) What major group of living things do coral belong to? Why do we need to be careful when snorkeling over the coral reef?
2) How many different types of reef cover will we be looking for? What are the types of reef cover that we might encounter?