This Band-tail puffer camouflages very well with its grassy environment.
We got up a bit later today-around 7 am-to an egg and biscuit meal made by
Chef Matt After that, we cleaned up and began to talk about the previous night's
article regarding the politicization of scientific topics in debate, in specific,
global warming.
After a lengthy discussion we were briefed by the Vegetation Survey team on
our morning's first activity. They took the skiff down to the shore, and we
all hopped into the water to snorkel over-only to get out a minute later when
incoming storms cancelled the survey for today.
Cassiopea Jellies lay upside-down along the red mangroves.
Storms kept us in the boat most of the morning (or at least on the boat-as a few
of us tried in vain to photograph the lightning), but we still managed to go on
the mangrove snorkel, which was one of the best snorkels I've ever been on. We
took both skiffs out to the tidal river, and swam with the current through the
mangrove area. At first glance it seemed a bit barren, but as we progressed we
saw more and more wildlife, some of the most notable being Upside-down Sea jellies,
an adult Blue Crab, some small Barracuda, and a stingray at the end of the snorkel,
complete with a Sharksucker Remora. All the wildlife in the area really reinforces
how important the mangroves are for harboring large wildlife communities.
A southern stingray rests on the ocean floor in the mangroves, along with
an associate remora.
We took the skiffs back to the boat, sat down for half an hour, and got right
back in the water to snorkel over to the beach to meet with the Beach Seine team
and complete two sweeps of the sandy beach area. Our first sweep was a bit problematic
in technique, but we managed to collect three fish and a few crabs; however, our
second sweep went much better as we netted a small school of Permit, two flounder,
and some other scattered fish.
We recorded all the data, took another short break, and were ready to go and snorkel
over the Hesperus-an eighty year old shipwreck. We also saw a Loggerhead Turtle
off the side of the boat on our return as it poked its head out of the water for
a brief few seconds. Unfortunately, we were delayed again by storms, but still
managed to get out and view the wreck, which was flourishing with wildlife. Large
schools of fish, barracudas, and a fair amount of stingrays were among the highlights
of that dive.
During our night plankton tow we found this unusual shrimp, which we are
still trying to classify.
And most of our work done for the day, we headed in for a pasta dinner, and began
wrapping up our work. I got a chance to help the Plankton Tow team work on their
project tonight, and we actually netted several baby filefish with the tow (which
we tossed back into the sea) as well as a mystery shrimp (it looks like a mysid,
but is way too big to be one) which is still under scrutiny.
Alex Photos by Eric
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