Day one in La Parguera served as an introduction to the area, its culture and its people. We became familiar with where we will be working and who we will be working with for these next two weeks. Despite being our first official day in the field, it was still a hefty one! I prepared myself to head to the University of Puerto Rico for the first time to see where we will be working with our samples and raw data. The campus was not what I entirely expected as it felt as if I was being watched the whole time we were there... Iguanas wondered about their day watching us as we moved across campus bobbing their heads with curiosity. The iguanas kept us company and led the way up towards Tsunami Point where we ate our lunches amongst a beautiful view. From there, I could see all of the cayos in the area. Amongst them all we could see our first snorkeling destination point Los Caracoles! It stood out from the rest with many boats anchored nearby to admire the small patch’s beautiful mangrove trees. The lack of seagrass around that area was visible from where we stood and reflected the party destination label it had been given by tourists. We hiked back down to meet three graduate students in the university’s biochemistry and ecology laboratory called the BERG lab. Ignacio, Carolina, and Janluis introduced themselves and their research focuses to us. Their presentations on marine 3D mapping and modeling, aquaculture of algae, and progress for a coral shoreline protection project were very fascinating and made me reconsider the environmental status of Puerto Rico’s surrounding waters and sea life. Our day ended with our first snorkel of the trip. We practiced seagrass surveying, seagrass core collections, and techniques for tracking seagrass growth. I couldn't help but notice tons of broken dead coral scattered across the sandy floor. Afterwards, we enjoyed our time swimming and collecting images of any species we could find.
Comments
Post a Comment