Today, we got down to business with some hands-on legitimate marine biologist work. As a group of determined snorkelers, we ventured out to a shallow spot on the reef to lay down transect tape. By laying down transect tape, we can measure what type of organisms inhabit that area of the reef. Each of us took a 5 meter section of the tape and with our handy-dandy waterproof paper (which is very strange to use: imagine writing on paper normally, but in the water!), we marked down everything we saw directly underneath the tape. Although this can be tedious, time consuming work, it is a lot easier to do while you’re actually in the water, than it is to watch a video and try to determine the organisms. Which is exactly what we had to do for practice before we could go out on our own. But, we were rewarded with some delicious Lionfish for dinner. For more info: check out Joe’s blog!

One of the stills from the video of the transect tape

working hard or hardly working?

Emma is determined to identify the species in the transect video

– Lea