The adventure ends

All good things must come to an end and unfortunately my summer excursion to the Caribbean is over. I will surely miss that windy island and all of its inhabitants, the landlubbers, ocean creatures and especially those who dare to inhabit both!

Session 1 Students

Sunset farewell dinner

Session 2 Students

This has been a wonderful opportunity and I greatly appreciate everyone that has supported me through this blog. It was such a pleasure to share this experience with you! I will keep you updated on my future marine adventures. There will be more, I can promise you that. There is so much more to learn. Rita our beloved resident director reminded me last night that more is known about the moon than our oceans. Thank you for being part of my first step!

the final days

Spent the day snorkeling the Mangroves and seagrass beds in Lac Bay. I previously admitted that baby fish melt my heart, I was wrong. After spending an hour trying to ID juvenile fish about the size of my thumb, they now frustrate me!
It was still a wonderful trip! I just keep looking around the island trying to soak up the beauty. Only a few more days in paradise.

A few pictures from our last few dives.

Can you see him? I hope so.. wouldn't want to step on this scorpionfish

PEA FISH !

pollution. tear

Went Snorkeling on Klein (3rd day in a row) yesterday! The turtle count is up to about 8 now. We saw mostly Green Turtles yesterday, one Hawksbill on Sunday.

Yesterday afternoon we had a Plankton lab, lots of copepods and other exciting small organisms! It's truly incredible the intricacy and complexity of their tiny bodies.

Today we had a lecture on pollution. WOW. Don't do it. A plastic bottle takes 460 years to decompose, in this time it will become smaller and smaller. Many beloved organisms mistake plastic for prey, because it looks very similar to jellies, small fish and plankton. I could post lots of sad pictures, but I wont do that to you. It's too devestating. Just make an effort to use less plastic. Choose that glass bottle instead of plastic when buying said product (then recycle that glass). Every time you purchase something you are expressing your voice as a consumer.

Went on an awesome night dive! Beautiful fluorescence, Tarpin everywhere (I touched 2, just dont tell the Marine park, they are magnificent creatures, the silver gardians of the night). Trying to get as much water time as possible in these last few days!  

Snorkeling Photos !

Just a few pictures from our Sunday afternoon excursions..

All smiles after a day on Klein

note the Scientology cruise ship in the distance

Golden Children

What a beaut ! 

tiny fish melt my heart

Ostracod night dive

Thursday: Approximately 45 minutes after sunset we entered the water to witness the most incredible light show. Only 4 days after the full moon do Ostracods put on this incredible mating display. These tiny arthropods are only known to mate in the Caribbean. It looks like a million little fire works underwater..

It was also wonderful going on a night dive without relying on our lights. Just floating in the water watching the ostracods, so peaceful. After the show we roamed around (lights on), I found an octopus and scorpionfish. Our lights also attracted a lot of strange worms and fish larvae. I held some larvae in my hand! They felt like glass, I could see right through them.

Today we spend the day on Klein Bonaire the small uninhabited island only a short boat ride from the harbor. Can't believe my time heres almost over. One more week, gotta soak it up!

florescence and frogfish

On monday we made the tough decision to go on a night dive. There's something magical about being underwater in complete darkness with just the beam from your flashlight illuminating your observable world. Jack let me spend a little one on one time with his blue light, let the florescence  infatuation continue! There are really no words to describe this experience, the whole reef is a glow, corals, sponges, and other various animals. Its like a rave in the ocean!

But these are my favorite! One swam right in front of my face.

Today: After a day spent learning about reef fish behavior and invasive species (Remember folks Lionfish are venomous not poisonous)  We dove. With the plan to observe fish behavior, particularly mating, cleaning and territorial displays. With every new dive and every new task underwater, it's like I'm seeing the reef for the first time. So many new things to observe. Unarguably, the top find of the dive was the DSO finding a Frogfish. The highly camouflaged and elusive fish are VERY hard to spot! They're one of the ugliest fish I've ever seen, but as my professor says they're so ugly they're almost cute. Then Mike pointed out a spotted eagle ray. What can I say, just another great day on the reef! 

videos to check out!

Tricia, the lovely Minnesotan, made this video from our adventures in the last few weeks!
http://youtu.be/0YWZ2x3omgQ

Today in class we watched The Cove, a great documentary that exposes the mass dolphin killings happening in Japan. It is an excellent movie! I suggest you watch it.
This is the web site with information on the current status in Japan and what efforts are being made to discontinue these cruelties.
http://www.takepart.com/cove

Deep dive!

Helma Hooker.. 98 fsw. No big deal.

I'm following closely behind our DSO (Dive safety officer) 

session II

The summer program here in Bonaire is broken into two different sessions. 

Session one: Become an advanced and AAUS (American Academy of Underwater Science) diver and take a Marine science research methods class

Session two: Class on marine ecology and conservation

So unfortunately most of the students only chose to do session one. Our residence hall went from population of 19 to 7 in a matter of two days. Its a little quiet here. Sad saying goodbye to everyone but also excited for another great two weeks here! 

The last two nights have proved interesting, its a lot easier to have a group conversation with 7 people as opposed to 14. I'm seeing the benefits of a smaller group. Its fun hearing about all the exotic places everyone has been Jack (our newest member) has extensive dive experience and was sharing his Australian shark stories, Roderik a Dutch researcher staying in our residence hall showed me pictures of the Great white shark he dove with (he was in a cage.. but still. the adrenaline!). We all get pretty excited about that stuff! Then we get talking about megalodons.. and came to the conclusion that a Jurassic Park-esk reintroduction of megalodons would be a great solution to global overpopulation. Ha! This is what happens when too many ocean fanatics get together! Luckily there are no sharks here.. but there are lionfish, which I had in the form of ceviche tonight! yum  

coolest animal alive..

Today we had a presentation today from Charles Mazel who is one of the top engineers who helped to comercialize fluorescence photography equipment. Incredible! And to get a first hand experience of the power of the reefs fluorescent ability we are going on a dive tonight and using blue lights and yellow color blocking shield to see what all were missing out on with just that boring old ambient light..
Also for those of you who are into nubibranches (mother) or wolverines (Keenan) let me introduce to you an even better creature... the mantis shrimp. check this out!

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp

not to hate on nudibranches mother, they are very cool.. especially under blue light.

lab time..

Last night we took our AAUS exam.
Today we worked on underwater videography and studied our enthobenthic samples from the mangroves. We found lots of segmented worms and annelids!

getting excited about our enthobenthic samples

fabulous faces

lets see how many students we can fit in a Slave hut.. approx. 14

we only have fun on sundays.. 

lionfish hunts and hot yoga

My lovely mother has just reminded me that I havent posted for a few days. Uh oh. she's addicted to the island life.. well, it's okay so am I.
Thursday we went to the south side of the island and climbed around in mangroves and took some granulometry samples.

 some endobethic sampling 

 
You know just your average day in the classroom. We swam with upside down jellyfish and hundreds of snapper through a mangrove channel. But what was even more breath taking were the number of species of soft corals growing on the roots of the red mangrove. They were the most spectacular colors; blues and oranges, who would have thought underneath that mess of mangroves?

Friday was a day of rescue. We took our written and in water PADI rescue diver exams. Then celebrated our new certification by going out to Havanas and a salsa dancing club. Wonderful night!

Saturday after trying to come to conscious with 11 people, it was almost as bad as business meeting, we finally rented a bus for three hours to take us caving. First stop: our driver just pulled of the side of the road and we all hop off.. start walking on a small path and there on the side of the trail is a hole in the ground with a latter. completely unmarked, little different that Crystal cave. Well the cave was wonderful, except it felt about a million degrees down there. Center of the earth is closer that I thought! Jay (my fellow Guilfordian) compared it to hot yoga; squeezing our bodies into strange positions while dripping sweat.
After a dip in the ocean, we were all cooled off and came back to the compound and went out for a delicious dinner at a Peruvian restaurant with everyone. Best food I've had in a long time, the ceviche was mouth watering.

Today we went on a lion fish survey and hunt on Klien Bonaire. Although many were spotted only one was killed. The lion fish are an invasive and non native species that has assumed the role of top predator in the Caribbean. Bonaire has taken an active stance on the controlling of this species which is why only a few were spotted on our trip today. My bunkmate took the opportunity for a free meal and decided to fillet the lionfish, although she only got a few bites out of it it was good fun watching her hack it apart!

 On our tour of the island today:

Rachel and Slave huts 

Kite surfers 

  

Bonairian Salt fields

time is flying

Time is flying by here, it must be all the hours we spend underwater that is confusing my internal clock but everyday this week has flown by! I am trying my best to soak up every moment here. It is so precious!
Monday we got our first exposure to actual scientific diving, laying transects and quadrat reading. But that was just the beginning. Actually most of us failed at it.. But its all a process right! 
Yesterday we spent all day in class (not as fun as the water, but still very interesting!) learning about different techniques for studying benthic organisms. We also did dry runs for today's dives,

which is what I'm doing here. Practicing the different passes we would be doing for each transect (the tape at my feet). I am obviously a pro.
Today we had four dives at 2 new dive spots. Exciting! Studying AGRRA benthic and fish diversity. Hard to believe how much new information I've learned in the last few days.. a week ago if you asked me the difference between Montestrea faveolata and Montestrea annularis (these are both massive corals by the way) I would be clueless. But not anymore! This deserves another fist pump.

Transect lines and quadrats

Today I logged 2.5 hours underwater. Big excitments for the day were finding a nudibranch, lionfish, touching fire coral, swimming vertically upside-down while reading my transect and being surrounded by a school of brown chromis they were accompanied by a beautiful trumpet fish (of course I had to stop my data collecting for a brief moment and experience it), writing upside-down underwater (its really not as hard as is sounds, I promise), finding myself face to face with a golden moray, and dissecting lionfish (I was able to identify a fish about the length of your thumb nail that had been in a lionfish's stomach for 3 days, my fish ID is on point)!
Besides the other students here with me, there are independent researchers staying and working with CIEE on projects. Tonight we had a presentation from Fadilah Ali who has been working with lionfish control in the ABC islands for 4 years. She had a wonderful presentation about the success of lionfish control in Bonaire due to the volunteer efforts of many local organizations. Great day! Mangrove kayaking tomorrow! Ciao