Your friendly Marine Bio TA has caught the blog up with the schedule, so enjoy two posts today instead of one! Sharing thoughts on the day’s adventures, here’s first year computer science and environmental science major Christian Gehman.
Today was summarized quite nicely when someone remarked that exciting things only happen when we have no film students! We started the morning off strong with a taxonomy quiz and a fun (but a little bit sad) discussion about coral reefs. After that went a little bit long, we scrambled to try to keep to our somewhat fluid schedule, changing into swimming suits and packing lunches for a long day snorkeling. With hopes to be back with some down time to spare before our 2:00 lecture, we set off (missing our dear film students, who evidently had better things to do) in the pontoon boat for the Bight, a very small bay in the keys.
Coming into the Bight, we dropped one group off near the mangroves bordering it and drove another group out toward the middle for data collection. Soon before we returned to pick up our mangrove group, the conversation on the boat quickly changed directions with cries of “Dolphins!” Sighting number two had begun, but it was not nearly as exciting as sighting number one, with the dolphin remaining a fin in the distance. Still, it got our blood flowing, and we smugly recounted the sighting to the two groups who had missed it for their research.
After picking up the mangrove group, we hit the gas to make the long trek out to Old Dan’s Bank, the farthest location that we had been to, and the reason that we had packed lunches. Arriving at Old Dan’s Bank with us was our appetites, so we quickly ate lunch before we got into the water. A couple samples and some cool sightings later, we were headed back when we again heard cries of “Dolphin!” This time, instead of remaining a fin in the distance, we saw the family of four up close and personal, and we even had to stop our propeller to avoid hitting them! None of us were complaining, however. We were just awed by the graceful dolphins swimming just out of arm’s reach. Eventually, they gave us enough room that we had no excuse to stay and watch, so we started moving again and watched them into the distance, until a sea turtle made an appearance on the other side of the boat. That was almost cooler. Unfortunately, as soon as it saw us, it gulped a breath of air and dove beneath the waves. Once again, we were headed home.
Coming into the final stretch through the mangroves, we were chugging along at regulation idle speed, sunburned and ready for a nap, but all of that left our thoughts when, not a quarter mile from our station, we saw a manatee coming up for air. About this time, the comment that began this article was uttered. We didn’t think that our day could get any more exciting. But evidently, the manatee that was so calmly floating along at idle speed in front of us showed that we were wrong.
Returning home, we realized that we had completely missed the scheduled lecture at 2, but our conveniently fluid schedule allowed us to fit it in after dinner. So a nap and some food later, we filed into the lab for a discussion on Echinoderms. But I’m pretty sure that we were all still trying to permanently burn all of the afternoon excitement into our memories forever.
