22 Jan PM – The day I went to 130 ft. underwater [Ed: No, she did not.]

So yesterday we finished our second trial of our urchin experiment, everything is going mostly as planned with only minor hiccups and hopefully everything will continue to go that way.

Throwing Urchins
 

Breeanne and I releasing the urchins we don’t need off the dock.

 

I’m actually writing this blog post sitting in the 85 degrees sunny weather; I hear on Long Island they’re preparing for 14 inches of snow, this makes Jamaica that much better. [Ed: Again, the course instructors can't emphasize this enough — we do not condone or approve of taunting folks in NY — some of us are going to have shovel our way into our houses on thursday when we get back.]

Anyways, yesterday we started off the morning a little slower than usual because the ocean was rough due to a northerly wind, meaning we couldn’t go to the dive location that we intended to the night before. Instead, a few of us decided to go off the Bauxite pier close by. It was pretty silty but I still saw a bunch of corals I’d never really gotten a close look at before, and I got to see Joe kill some Lionfish. We spent the rest of the day doing our project and looking at research articles. When I was looking for turf algae in the water I saw a big barracuda, I thought it was huge, but everyone else told me to stop over exaggerating. Dinner later that night was awesome, we had chicken with some kind of barbequey sauce on it, which I spread over my rice as well, I had to have seconds. Yum, yum. We finished off the night by going out to the helipad and watching the stars, they’re absolutely beautiful out here, it’s so nice not having the light pollution like there is on the island. I wish I could take a picture, but unfortunately my phone can’t take a picture that clear. Oh well, guess you gotta see it to believe it.

This morning we went to Rio Bueno, where we got to dive off a wall, it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, literally the reef just drops off to ocean. We were told before we left, and again on the boat, that we weren’t allowed below 60 feet, but on a reef face that’s kind of difficult if you don’t pay attention. I continued to be amazed by all the different types of coral, the branching corals especially, because they need to be deeper to be protected from waves. I saw a sea turtle from afar, but the people behind me got to get up close and personal, I’m so jealous… When we got back up I was wrongfully accused of going 130 feet due to my incorrect depth meter and thus, supposedly, gave Professor Warren heart palpatation. He should have known better, because why would a perfect student like me ever disobey any kind of rule?

See you in 3 days New York, can’t wait for the cold weathe! (NOT)

– Kaitlyn

Caves

We went and saw some cool caves the night before, I wish I had some pictures of the bats, they’re so cute.

Slate Pencil Urchin
 

Slate-Pencil Urchin!

 

2 thoughts on “22 Jan PM – The day I went to 130 ft. underwater [Ed: No, she did not.]

  1. Yes kill the Lionfish before they get up here-they eat everything!
    I think I saw that Barracuda from New York so don’t let anyone say it was small-it was HUGE.
    My Katie NEVER disobeys any rules except for maybe….

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