5/23

 Today, we took a boat to the University of Puerto Rico and took all of our gear and headed out on another boat back to Caracoles to do benthic surveys with my group. I started doing the measurements first with the camera and ruler in an area full of Thalassia testudinium. The water was only about 3 or 4 feet deep, but I still had to dive down to measure heights. I did not find any invertebrates while sampling over my 30 meters. We did one more survey there then took the boat to Enrique to do surveys over an area with lots of coral. I helped move the quadrat while Amelia did measurements. The water was about 8 to 9 feet, and we saw lots of Diadema, hard corals, and soft corals. After the three surveys were completed, my team got to freely snorkel around the mangroves. We swam through the mangrove path again and the highlights I saw were a large parrotfish and a yellow mantis shrimp. I thought it was a sacrificial leaf from a mangrove, but it started moving around and even turned to look at me for a while. It was a bright yellow color and was especially beautiful. I think that was the coolest thing I have seen on this trip so far. We also snorkeled farther out to see the corals and I saw a large Cassiopeia and a bright orange starfish the size of a dinner plate. Lots of Sargassum floated through the water, and some got stuck in my hair. There were a lot of corals and I really enjoyed seeing a large pink brain coral. There were corals that were alive and dead and lots of conch shells. We swam out to the point the shelf ended and it dropped so far down I couldn’t see the floor. After our fun snorkel, my team swam back to the boat and we headed back to the university. Our boat captains Jennifer and Alaya gave us lots of snacks, fresh fruits and pita chips with hummus. It rained on the way back for a few minutes and it felt like small stinging needles. We washed off our gear for a dock party hosted by Frank, the boat captain from last year’s trip. He made spaghetti with penne pasta and pork chops. We fed the bones to the Tarpon off the dock. We finished lunch and headed to the lab to do more seagrass core biomass analysis. There was an invasive species of Halophila in Amelia’s sample, but Caitlin and I only had Thalassia and Syringodium. I also helped Dr. Matich compared the old and new growth rate of Thalassia from the flags that he placed out a few days ago. I also did one more cell count for Dr. Steichen with the hemocytometer, and surprisingly I did not find many diatoms. I did find a large copepod, which was very cool to see. We gathered our drying gear from the dock and headed back to the house to input data. As I finished up my CPCE analysis, we all heard an ice cream truck in the distance and all ran out with money to get some. I ordered a banana split with pineapple, strawberry, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles. It was just what I needed after a long day of hard work and snorkeling!

-Emma