Day ten on the island and I still love every second of it. We have been quite busy over the past few days with Ocho Rios, Rio Bueno, and Dairy Bull, the latter two being dive sites. But even with all the fun we are having, research has gone into full swing. I'm doing my project on damselfish, and whether they stay in their territory when their algae is taken. So far, I have only seen one site where the fish did in fact go.

Our fearless leader Joe Warren wearing his critter-cam and taking pictures.

During our dives, I now find myself poking and prodding at damselfish territories until they come and attack me, it is rather entertaining. The more we dive the more cool things we keep running into, today we dove near a 100' drop off that was simply amazing to witness. Swimming up to the drop, you can be somewhere that the bottom is at 20' and a few feet forward, the bottom is 120'!

This is right after our Rio Bueno dive, our boat driver gave us all oranges. They were quite tasty.

Yesterday we stumbled upon a line of z traps that the locals use for fishing around here. One of the traps had about half a dozen lobster, a balloon fish, and a pretty big lionfish. Out of the water is just about as enjoyable as in, at night we have started daily volleyball games that can get rather intense. The rest of the time is usually devoted to our research projects. I have 12 sites that are spread out around the bay that I have to visit once a day, sometimes I wish I had one of those little water scooters that would just carry me across the bay to my different sites.

It rained a little today. In case you've forgotten, that's what happens to precipitation when it gets warm.

I'm actually about to go out and observe my sites right now, so I thought I'd leave you with this wonderful screen shot of the weather forecast down here to think about while you shovel your selves out for the umpteenth time this month. [Ed: Matt, this is called tempting fate. If our flight back is delayed, we're blaming you!]
 
-Matthew J.