Saturday morning started out with a yummy breakfast of bacon and pancakes before the divers headed out to do our outer reef transects. My dive buddy (Strawberry Sammi) and I backward rolled off the boat, beginning our dive with a splash. We then descended to 20 feet and looked for a good spot to do our first transect. After finding a suitable spot we got to work laying out the 15-meter tape, then taking turns swimming along it to do our fish and urchin counts. Finally, we began the tedious process of marking down the bottom substrate every 10 centimeters with Sammi starting at one end and me at the other, meeting in the middle. We had enough air in our tanks to do another one, so we found another spot for our tape and repeated the steps.

A picture of a small part of our transect. Photo creds to Sammi

We were back at it again after lunch, this time inside the reef crest. However, we hit a snag when we swam out and realized we had forgotten our transect tape at the dock. After retrieving the tape we found an area of patch reef to do our next two transects. We completed them much quicker than this morning as we had our procedure down and the site was much shallower at around 8 feet. This site also had many more parrotfish to see and count. We ended the night with a lively game of volleyball after dinner and looking off the dock to see any nocturnal critters. All in all, it was a very productive day.

A picture of me looking annoyed while beginning one of our transects inside the reef crest. Photo creds to Sammi

Our dive slate showing our fish and urchin counts and part of our bottom identification. Photo creds to Sammi.

See ya later,

CandyHearts Caitlin