After a decent nights rest, the gang got up for a hearty breakfast of oatmeal and scrambled eggs. With our bellies full, we hopped on the truck and took a short ride to our morning destination, Bonefish Bay. Even though the weather was cloudy, the students had a ton of fun turning over rocks looking for various intertidal organisms such as crabs, brittle stars, shrimp, urchins, and fish.
JW pointed out a Decorator Crab to some students. These crabs are very small and live under rocks blending in with their environment. Timothy found a rarely seen lettuce sea slug under one of the rocks he turned over. Ed squealed with excitement.
After an exciting morning at Bonefish, we headed back to the GRC for some lunch. The usual pasta was served but the students were surprised with some extra lunch meat options. We were spoiled with salami, roast beef, bologna, and turkey. Soon after lunch, the group headed out to Sand Dollar Reef and Bay. It is called Sand Dollar Reef because of the abundance of sand dollars. You parents and friends out there may be getting some as gifts from our excursion. At this reef, students found a Queen Helmet snail, a very large Southern Stingray, Christmas tree worms, Sea Biscuits, Lane Snapper, Spiny Lobsters, and Flounder. The current at this site was very strong and students had a hard time staying off the coral beds; but we did a very good job keeping our distance.
This excursion made us very tired. We headed back to the field station for some grub. Barbeque chicken with rice and carrot cake for dessert!! YUM! Tonight in class we reviewed for our first exam which is tomorrow evening. So, tomorrow is a full day of studying at certain sites and most likely there will be lots of studying right before the exam. So parents don’t be alarmed if you do not receive emails tomorrow! Send us all smart thoughts from back home.
Hallie Donathan ’13 Adrianna McDaniels ‘15