Hello everyone.
After Monday’s data gathering snorkel, we took the equipment back to the lab and planned on fixing the equipment. Tuesday was really windy so we did some prep work. We used marine grout and wire mesh and built artificial coral heads to adhere to the reef, hoping organisms would attach to them and grow. We had to put grooves in the grout so that corals would like the fake reef material. They like something called “rigosity.” which basically means nooks and crannies. We used the sand as our mold and poured the grout in. I will try and attach a photo of this when I blog about us going out and placing them. They harden very quickly so we have already been able to remove them from the sand and have prepared to anchor them.
The equipment and the lab are simple. This is a research station and they don’t even have a decent wet lab. There is a reason for the lab materials and study materials to be so simple; it is unnecessary to have expensive materials here, because the salt water just wreaks havoc on it.
The urchins I have seen on San Salvador are different than in Oregon. These are black with very long spines. The Nassau lagoon had urchins with spines similar to the urchins found in the Pacific Northwest but the were a pale green color. Besides the lionfish infestation, we have seen very little fish but barracuda, stingrays and parrotfish are on that list.
Today we toured the island. It has some interesting old buildings that were built during their early colonization days. We found a great place to snorkel and a local woman named Leah guided me out where hawk’s bill sea turtles feed. I am disappointed to tell you we didn’t see any although we had a barracuda stalker the whole time. It is an odd fish, long, mean looking and lots of teeth. It would look away/turn away every time we would look at it. This became a fun game but it never left our side.
The islands in the Bahamas are not typical islands like Hawaii or even the Caribbean islands. They are fairly barren of native food. That leads me to your task: You are to research the Bahamas online. 1. How did these islands come to be? 2. How old are the islands? 3. What were the native people like? The people living here are not native. How and why are they here? 4. Why were these islands part of England even though they are closer to the United States? 5. How do the Bahamian people make their living?
To get credit for this, you must answer all 5 questions including putting your initials at the end of your answers. I will read and edit the blog tonight at 4:00pm your time, that is the latest you can comment.
I do not know how the whole phone/video conference will go. Obviously the call did not work on Wednesday, as there are 2 teachers whose internet use shut down the system. I am still going to try for the video conference Thursday and I will definitely going to try and call on Friday morning.
Have great day! I will!
Mr. Klug (plus infinity)
ps The blogging is spotty so this blog should be read by all Marine Biology classes
