Day two was a big learning day for us down here in sunny Jamaica. Joe kicked off the afternoon with a short quiz and an interesting lecture on coral bio. Once we wrapped up the lecture we put on our gear, grabbed our cameras and hit the reef for some hands on work in the field. Today’s snorkel mission was to identify as many organisms as possible, work on learning their scientific names and bring some specimens back to the wet lab for further examination. The professors made it a point to pop their heads up every so often and explain what exactly we were looking at. Brad even picked up a Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber (Holothuria Mexicana) and passed it around.

Sea cucumber hot potato

After snorkeling Brad put things into perspective for us with a lecture on the overview of ecological thought. Dinner was next and the trend of fantastic dinners continued. After dinner we made our way to the wet lab for some more sea grass scraping and to ID some of the peculiar specimens we collected, like this West Indian Sea Egg Urchin (Tripneustes ventricosus) and Banded-Arm Brittle Star (Ophioderma appressum).

Echinoderm buddies

TO BE CONTINUED……………………. – Stathi