Today, we spent our Memorial Day and Allie’s birthday going to East Beach and conducting a trash survey! There are no land masses between this beach and Africa allowing trash to easily accumulate from all around the world. We split into three groups to survey several areas of the beach and collected trash of different sizes and materials. We found some interesting pieces of trash such as a giant rope, a bicycle seat, a still full and sealed bottle of water, shoes, and even some trash with foreign labels. After sorting the trash we took down the data and removed it from the beach so that we can come back to collect trash accumulation information. During this exploration, we were stopped to see a black tip reef shark swimming just close enough to be seen from the beach. Also, after we had finished collecting data, we spotted a small sea turtle making its way along the shore line.
After a delicious spaghetti lunch, we headed out to telephone pole reef, named after the location of a telephone pole, for an afternoon of snorkeling and observing/identifying fish. This reef was significantly deeper than the reefs we had previously visited at about twenty feet deep. This allowed us to see some larger fish, even a barracuda, a spotted moray eel, and a honeycomb cowfish. After about an hour and a half of snorkeling, we enjoyed a refreshing rain shower on the truck ride home. However, this was not so fun for those trying to dry their laundry on the clothes line back at the GRC! Suddenly, someone yelled “pigs!” and on the side of the road we saw wild pigs and piglets.
We then had a delicious dinner of pork, macaroni and cheese, green beans, rice, and salad. In the middle of this meal, Allie was surprised when JDubs brought out a cake and the whole cafeteria sang her happy birthday!
After class, we ended our night relaxing and watching Finding Nemo.
-Allie, Christen, and Sara (: