While it has been an adjustment waking up at 6:00 am every morning to make sure we have enough time to each get ready for breakfast at 7:15 am, it’s already gotten a bit easier only two days in. This morning my roommates and I were ready about 20 minutes early so we decided to start our day by going to watch the sunrise over the water. It was amazing to see how calm the water was and how the water got bluer the more the sun rose. After breakfast a few of us went for a morning snorkeling trip and decided we had enough time before lunch to head out to the reef crest. We were able to see a spotted eagle ray (again!!), barracudas, and a ton of corals with itty bitty fishies hiding out as soon as they spotted us. A night snorkel is definitely in planning between a group of us to see just what kinds of animals come out and lurk around the marine lab at night. Overall, we’ve had an amazing start to the trip and I can’t wait to see what else we’ll be able to see as the days go on.

The sunrise on January 4th as the day started with a few of us taking in the view of the super pretty calm and blue waters.

A well camouflaged flounder that we excitedly spotted while snorkeling out to the reef crest on January 4th.

– clementine camille

After an exciting morning of scuba diving and snorkeling in the morning, and after a hearty lunch of veggie soup and cheese whole grain sandwiches, we went snorkeling again in the afternoon around three pm and it was such a beautiful day.

The walk from our dorm to the beach is a long two-minute walk, and I made that journey with a pep in my orange and black booties, and jumped into the bay. My roommates had gone out earlier than me so I just swam around and the first thing I saw was my familiar friend the spotted eagle ray burrowing in the sand. I scared him by my presence so he quickly scampered off. I continued with my snorkeling journey and swam towards three free-standing rocks and corals, and then couldn’t believe my eyes! There was just a small blue octopus hanging out floating in the water. I swam closer to him and he darted towards a little hole underneath the coral where he peaked his head out and watched me as I watched him. I swam free-style to my friends and splashed at them yelling that there was an octopus. They followed me back and our blue friend was still in his hole and we all marveled at him. I am looking forward to all the other ocean friends that I will make at Discovery Bay.

Small inquisitive  octopus hiding in a hole from some scuba divers while still peeking his eye out.

– Ana

Today started off with a dive right after breakfast at a site called Dancing Lady. We went down to around 60 feet and saw a lot of cool marine life! We passed by a lobster cage that had a king crab, some Caribbean spiny lobsters, and a few balloon fish, as well as seeing lots of different corals, reef fish, and plant life. The dive went for around 45 minutes, and after the boat got back to shore most of us hopped right back in the water to go snorkeling. I started out looking in the rocky areas by the mangroves since someone said an octopus lived there, but unfortunately we didn’t find him yet (later in the day a couple of people saw two octopi!) so we explored the areas a little farther out. Hiding in some sea grass, I spotted a sharp-tail eel and managed to get two photos of him before my camera died. About five minutes later I saw some kind of moray playing hide and seek, but when I tried to show my buddy to get a picture it was gone, so unfortunately I couldn’t figure out what species. After snorkeling was lunch and a lecture on reef fish, after which we decided to go snorkeling again out to the reef crest. This turned out to be a great decision because I saw a couple of lettuce sea slugs, which are one of my favorite animals.

These slugs absorb chloroplasts from the algae they eat, so they’re able to do photosynthesis for energy!

I also spent a lot of time doing a photoshoot of a balloon fish, which are quickly becoming another favorite of mine, as I seem to run into them everywhere I go.

He was ready for his close-up.

We came back to shore and worked on some species identification from the photos we had taken and started to put the pictures into a slide show. The rest of the night was spent looking over the massive list of species to start learning all the scientific names for our upcoming ID test. Overall, we had a great day and I’m excited to see what happens next!

These French Grunts seemed to be having a spirited debate.

-Monkeybread Maddie

On Tuesday we finally arrived in Jamaica after a long morning of travel. There were many steps to officially be in and many of us had the pleasure of being questioned by security of why we were staying in a marine lab, but we all made it in! After being greeted by the hit of warm air outside the airport, we waited for our mini buses to arrive so that we could make our way to the lab. This took a while because we were waiting for a professor and her two students from another school, but this gave us plenty of time to get to know each other! Most people were able to fit into the first bus, but those who went into the second one, myself included, had to keep reminding the driver that we had to wait for the rest of our group. At one point, he drove us away and we had no idea what was going on, but don’t worry, he looped us back to get Dr. Warren and the others! After a 45 minute drive, we finally arrived to the lab!

We unloaded our bags and were quickly greeted by the cutest kittens I have ever seen. One of the kittens is the size of my palm and me and a few others have taken it upon ourselves to name him Lizard… hopefully it’ll catch on. After choosing our rooms, we hung out with our roommates then all met up for a tour. The people that work here are so nice! They showed us around and everything honestly still hasn’t felt real. We then played a game to get to know everyone in the class, and I feel like I’m friends with everyone already even though we just got here. The game entailed us calling ourselves a food that started with the first letter of our first name, though, so now I have to think of a food whenever I’m trying to remember someone’s name. After arriving, all of us were so so hungry and didn’t get lunch, so we had to wait until dinner to eat. So, as you could imagine, playing a game where we had to think of a food while we all hadn’t eaten for hours was quite the struggle. Afterward, we all ate an amazing dinner together, honestly the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. I am so excited for everything about this trip and it’s been the most amazing start!

“Us waiting along with lots of others for our ride outside Montego Bay Airport.”

“Lizard the kitten asking for some well-deserved attention.”

“Pierogi Paxton (me), Raspberry Rose, and Monkey Bread Maddie in front of our awesome new classroom!”

Until next time,

Pierogi Paxton 🙂

Coming to Jamaica, I was most excited for the opportunity to log a bunch of new dives. I got my SCUBA certification back in May, however since then I have not had any opportunities to go out and dive. This means this trip is my first time diving outside my certification dives and I could not be more excited! Up until this point, we have gone on two dives, one yesterday morning and one this morning. The dive yesterday was a check-out dive to refresh our memory on some important skills. We dove at Eco Reef during this dive (unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera, so no pictures of this spot). For our dive this morning, we dove at Dancing Lady. This dive was more chill with the goal of exploring the reef and taking pictures of any organisms we see.

As soon as we got down to the bottom this morning, I was greeted by a fairly large barracuda. It was only around for a few seconds, but I was able to capture a (slightly blurry) picture as it swam by.

“Picture of my barracuda friend.”  

After a little bit of dawdling around, my dive partner and I came across a cool crab cage. [Editor note: crab cage = local fisherman fish trap] There was a large crab (species to be identified) hanging out inside the cage as well as a few lobsters (also to be identified).

“Crab (center) and lobster (bottom right) saying hi from inside the cage!”

I can’t wait to get back into the water and find see what I can find in the days to come!

Tim

January 3 was our first full day in Jamacia. After 2 days (for me) of travel, I managed to conk right out at 8 pm the night before and wake up bright and early (6:30 am). As someone who is from Nevada, I don’t get access to the ocean or really any deep water very often, so being able to snorkel pretty much whenever I want is really nice. Today I spent a total of I think three hours swimming around, but I know most people definitely spent more. I’m a senior marine biology student, but this is the first time I have actually gotten a chance to see the organisms I’ve been learning about out in the wild. In just today, I and my little group of four were able to identify about 25 species from pictures we took, and we still have a bunch to go.

Massive Starlet Coral spotted by Ari

My friend Ari spotted this massive starlet coral and was trying to get me to take a picture. For some reason, I could not figure out what she was talking about, but I did end up finding it and got one of the best photos from the day.

Finger Corals, Sea Urchin, and Sea Anemone

Ari found this thin finger coral also, but she did not notice the sea urchin inside of it, the clubtip finger coral next to it, or the anemone on the other side. We still have not identified the anemone, but we spent a good 20 minutes trying to after dinner.

Parrot Fish! (and Blue Tang)

I saw this school of fish and had no idea what they were (except for the bright blue one), but managed to get a pretty good picture of the one right in the middle. Later, when we were trying to ID them, we figured out they was princess parrot fish. While interesting by itself, my first ever book report (in kindergarten) was on parrot fish so it was really cool to finally be able to see one, even if it was 13 years later.

Can’t wait to see what else we find!
• Mango Mae

The first dive I did on this trip was my check out dive which was on the eco reef right next to the marine lab. From the first looks of the dive, I didn’t have high hopes due to the wind and strong current on the surface. When we got to the sandy bottom where Snow had us do the skills for the check out, we did our mask clearing, share air drill, and regulator recovery while getting pushed along the bottom by the current. At this point we were in 13 feet of water so I still had a little hope that the dive may turn out okay. As we descended the reef, I couldn’t help but notice the mass amount of bleaching on the reef. This bleaching was different from other places I’ve dove, because the reef was bleached in small spots all over rather than large spots. As we continued the dive, we saw a plethora of parrotfish and hamlets with the most dominant species that I saw being the lionfish. Yesterday we were told that Jamaica had their lionfish population under control and within the marine lab there would be a few small lionfish, however I saw five lionfish that were some of the biggest I’ve seen in my diving career. I also saw several cleaner shrimp and brittle stars hanging around the sponges which was interesting to photograph. I maxed out at 57 feet which allowed us to also see the differentiation in the water due to a freshwater input. There were also lots more anemones and sea cucumbers then I expected to see scattered all along the reef. The only downside to the dive was that the visibility was mucked up a few times due to the number of divers diving the dive and crowding together. Overall, I would say the dive was better than I first expected with more reef than I expected Jamaica to have.

Picture of an anemone.

Picture of two lionfish under a rock.

Picture of a brittle star in a sponge.

Julia

After a long day of traveling, our group arrived in Jamaica yesterday, January 2nd. The next day, we were ready to check out the water. Before our first in-person lecture, the scuba divers and snorkelers split up to explore Discovery Bay. Here, we took a closer look at the many species inhabiting this beautiful area. From snorkeling alone, we were able to view likely over eighty different species of coral we have yet to learn to identify. This occasion was the first time I have snorkeled in six years, and it was an incredibly strong reintroduction. I was opened back up to a world I hadn’t experienced in many years, and this trip is sure to stick in my mind for many more years to come.

An image I took of Siderastrea siderea (a massive starlet coral) in Discovery Bay with some small anemones living at the bottom.

While I’m still getting used to using my camera underwater, I’m grateful I was able to capture this experience.

-Emilie

We spent today and yesterday adjusting to our new schedule in Jamaica. Yesterday, we were introduced to the Discovery Bay Marine Lab’s facility and staff, taking a tour of the lab station from our class to the diving deck.

View of the shoreline from the DBML’s helipad.

Today was our first class where we really engaged in class activities – in addition to two lectures, we were also able to snorkel around the area, led by Professors Peterson and Warren. I snorkeled with Professor Warren, and our group was able to find a pair of spotted eagle rays, which I unfortunately couldn’t snap a photo of, but was quite cool to see nonetheless! It was a definite learning curve with some firsts, like trying to snorkel without gagging every two seconds or knowing how to operate my camera, but so far it’s been great being able to dive around the area and learn more about coral reefs – it’s only day one, but I’m excited for what’s to come!

A nighttime view of the shoreline

-Royce

Happy to report that 19 students and 2 instructors have safely arrived at Discovery Bay Marine Lab in Jamaica.  It was a very early and long day of travel, but after a lovely dinner and course intro, we will be getting in the water (82F) tomorrow after breakfast.  Students are adjusting to their rooms and classmates and the fact that breakfast is at 715am!