Today [Ed: well, yesterday. The blogs go up the day after usually.] started with a Jamaican style breakfast that consisted of salt fish, spinach, biscuits, and peanut oatmeal with a twist. It was much creamier than oatmeal but that’s the closest I’ve ever had that comes close to that taste. After breakfast projects began to develop. My project required collecting different substrates. Sarah and I are looking at the reattachment rates of sponges on different things. So my morning was spent walking along the beach looking for flat rocks, sand, coral rubble, and garbage. We were originally going to try the reattachment rate on an algae covered rock but those are hard to find so we switched it to garbage which is sadly much more common. By lunch we had our wet lab stations set up and ready to go. Because the weather hasn’t been the best for diving we unfortunately couldn’t start our project. We didn’t have any sponges yet. 

Collecting some rocks from the shore.

    The sun came out in the afternoon which brought everyone out to the water. Whether they were lying out on the grass or snorkeling, people were definitely taking full advantage of the sun. The divers went out at 3 because some projects required diving and the weather could no longer hold them back. I visited the back reef looking for sponges but had no luck. I have never been to the back reef, however, and I didn’t care that there were no sponges. Everything was so much greener and there were so many more fish compared to in the lagoon. The long swim out was definitely worth it. When we were getting out a full rainbow stretched across the sky. The day ended with a bonfire. We saw a huge tanker leave the bauxite mine next door to our lab and admired the hundreds of stars that are washed out by New York’s city lights.

-Allegra