Presentation Preparation

Today consisted of group work all day and all night, literally. My group just now finished everything for tomorrow. All we have to do in the morning is add in some pretty pictures and practice it all together to ensure it lasts 15 minutes! So basically, we all had to listen to a lecture on how to properly analyze our data we collected. Once we learned this, we were sent off to do it on our own with our actual data. My group analyzed everything within an hour and began putting all the information we need on the powerpoint. We worked all the way up until lunch and then continued again after it. We did take a couple hour break where I read my book (I'm almost finished), and then after dinner we started again. I am so happy we are pretty much done now, and I'm even more excited to think that after tomorrow at 4 p.m. when we present these we will be done with school work for the rest of our trip, yay!! :)

I will probably finish my book tonight, and I already have the second book in the trilogy for me to begin once I am done! I know today wasn't very exciting, and it was a really short blog...so here are some various pictures from some of my days here I have yet to show you all. Have a great night everyone! :)

 Beautiful flamingos at the salinas!

 Cute little seahorse, we caught him and put him back in the ocean after everyone got a good picture!

 Big cow just roaming around (the wild cows, donkeys, and horses were definitely a surprise to me when I got here)

The gorgeous view from my room, I'm not sure if you can see it, but there is a rainbow in the sky :)

Field Research: Day 3

After enjoying delicious chocolate chip pancakes this morning, my group was the first to head out to collect data for our last field research day. We got it all done within an hour and headed back to the research center to enter in all of our data we found. Tonight, our teacher will be putting together all of the data from all 6 of the groups and be sending us the results. It is our job to analyze the data and use it to test our hypothesis we conducted. We have until Friday to put it all together and create a powerpoint to present to everyone here. I think we have all day tomorrow to work on the project and learn the specifics from our teacher on how to analyze it correctly. My group has already started our powerpoint, so all we have to do is analyze our data and come up with a conclusion. It is this side of the program, the research, that enjoys me the most! :)

Examining one of our quadrates.

 Another quadrate.

A little friend while we were analyzing :)

Later in the afternoon, once we all finished lunch, it was time for my group to go out and dive! I had all of my gear set up, on my back, and was ready to fall back in the water when I noticed my air tasted funny. I had my dive master smell it and taste it also and she too said something was wrong. So...unfortunately I had to sit out on the dive :( It wasn't too bad, I just fell asleep on the boat and tanned. I thought I would get nauseous from the waves, but it was actually relaxing. The only thing that really makes me upset is when we returned to the center I had the Dive Safety Officer check my air and he said everything was fine with it! Which means something was wrong with my regulator. So we cleaned my regulator and tried it out again and everything tasted fine. Something must have spilled on my regulator from the dive shed until we reached the dive site (it tasted like gasoline!). Basically, if I would have just swished my regulator around a little bit in the salt water I would have still been able to go on my dive, urrgh!! However, I am a firm believer in "everything happens for a reason", so I keep telling myself something bad may have happened if I did go on the dive. At least it wasn't my last dive here either, I still have one more on Saturday! :)

Right when we got back from the dive it was about dinner time. It was very good tonight, we had pasta, garlic bread, veggies, and fruit! For tonight...the groups that didn't go night diving last night are going tonight instead. So I have the night to just relax again! I started a new book called "The Hunger Games" and I plan on reading it all night! It's a trilogy too, so once I'm done I'll be able to move onto the next (I love books like that)! Well I'm going to go read, so have a good evening all! :)

Field Research: Day 2 (& A Night Dive!)

This morning was pretty relaxing, we had field research all day long, but we were split up into two groups. I was part of the second group so I had until after lunch to do whatever I wanted! I spent this time napping and reading a book :) After lunch, it was my group's time to go snorkel and collect some data. We went through the same process as last time by laying out the transect and collecting fish information within our transect. We got through it pretty quickly so we were able to snorkel around for a little while until the other snorkelers were done collecting there data. I saw another cowfish, but this time it was bright purple. There was also a group of three stingrays grazing on top of some seagrass :)

By the time we got back it was getting close to dinner, so we decided to play another round of volleyball! It was so much fun today everyone was getting into it! Right before dinner we had to help carry in all of the dry food shipment we just received. It was cool to get a "behind the scenes" tour of how they do things here as far as food goes. They stalk up in bulk and even set aside a ton of food for the hurricane shelter just in case. With the food shipment also came t-shirts for all of us students. I love getting clothes, haha! They are just plain white with the SFS logo on the back and front, but I'm excited to wear mine! :)

Once dinner was over I had to hurry and get ready for my night dive! I'm not going to lie...I was very nervous for this. But now I can honestly say it was one of my most favorite experiences of my life!!! From the second we rolled back into the water to me stepping back onto the boat in the end I was in complete awe. First, when I plunged into the water I landed in a school of squid, which light up in various ways at night. Then as we began to descend I was able to see the beautiful ocean for what it really is. During the day we cannot see certain spectrums of light that we have the opportunity to see at night with the dive light. All of the coral and sponges were bright neon colors like blue, purple, green, yellow, and orange (and I thought they were pretty during the day). Even the fish were different colors from what I would normally see during the day, they were absolutely stunning. Our dive was at the arch, so we were able to go under it and see the different life it has at night. We saw an arrow crab (also known as a spider crab) that was just sticking fish into its mouth left and right. There were about 5 lionfish hanging upside down on the walls too. Hanging down from the arch is this giant sponge that is bright orange, and as I passed it I shone my light over it and saw something bright purple. There was a fish sleeping right side up inside one of the sections of the sponge!! After the arch and until the very end of our dive we were stalked by a barracuda. They really like shiny things so it was attracted to all of our lights. At our safety stop on our way up we all put the light to our chest and swished our hands around in the water really fast and you could see the bioluminescent things just glowing in the water. It is so crazy what is really there that we cannot see, we swim through them the entire time but they only light up if we  move really fast. It was cool because on our way back into the dock we could see bright green bioluminescence throughout all of the waves from the boat! Everything was just so eye-popping and colorful, it was by far my favorite dive yet!!!

So, after two waterfront activities pretty much back to back I am extremely tired and ready for bed!! With that said, good night everyone! :)

BTW...this isn't a picture I took or even the one I saw tonight, but I wanted to give you all an idea of a what a spider crab looks like! :) 

Final Exam Officially Over!

Wahoo! The pressure of this exam is finally gone and I cannot express how ecstatic I am!! After a full day on non-stop studying I am burnt out from the books. Although, as much as I was happy when it was over and I sent it to all my teachers, I was a little upset because I felt like we should have been given more time. We have three teachers here and it was a combination of all of their lectures, separated into 3 parts. For my first teacher, we had 9 short answer questions (which are a few sentences long), and then we had 2 essays! My second teacher had 4 questions that we had to write a paragraph each to explain the questions. Lastly, my third teacher had about 15 questions that was a combination of short answer and paragraphs for the answers. We had to complete all three parts within two hours! It was definitely a time crunch, and when they told us we had 15 more minutes I started freaking out because I like to skip around a lot and come back to questions. At that point I raced through all of the ones I had skipped and finished them. I got all of it done in time, but it would have been nice to have an extra 30 minutes or so to go over everything and maybe explain in better detail about some questions. But, what is done is done and now I'll just be waiting for my grade!

After the exam was lunch, and then right from lunch we had a field trip to a beach call Coast Guard. It is at the very North tip of South Caicos and is a really good site for mangroves (which is the nursery habitat for a lot of fish species). We brought along all of our snorkel gear and headed out in three different vehicles. On the way we stopped and took pictures of pretty scenery as well as the occasional donkey that was on the side of the road. We actually pulled up to a group of donkeys together, and there were about 4 baby donkeys. They were so cute!!! :) When we arrived at the beach we were split up into two groups. One group went straight down to the mangrove site, and the other went out to the other side of the beach and rode the current all the way around in a loop back to the mangrove site. I started out at the mangrove site. When we got in the water we had to swim over a patch of upside down jellyfish before we were able to look around and swim off by ourselves. Even though they sting you, I cannot deny how beautiful they are! Some of them were really big (like bigger than my head) and some were as small as my palm...but they were all different colors and mostly neon! Once we swam over them I snorkeled along the coastal line where all of the mangroves were. These aqua plants have prop roots that stick out of the water, and in between all of the roots is where all of the baby fish are. It was really cool to see all of the fish I have been studying, identifying, and looking at outside our research center in a mini-form. They were so little and adorable! I even saw a few baby barracudas (I think I saw the mommy too because it would not leave me alone and was following me the entire time I was along the coastal line, it was about 5 feet long!). There was also a really pretty orange, yellow, and purple starfish in the sand. After about 20 minutes of snorkeling at the mangrove site it was our turn to go ride the current on the other side.

For this part of the snorkel we had to swim against the current to get further out into the ocean, and then we just let the current take us along the tip of the island. We passed a huge deep area with some of the biggest coral I have ever seen! We also saw a Southern Stingray and an Eagle Ray too! The fish here were much bigger because it isn't a nursery ground, its the actual pelagic zone. After viewing all of the pretty coral and cool fish, we were brought back around to the mangrove site. The second time I was at the mangrove site I went to the opposite side of the coastal line and was snorkeling next to the sand flats. I still saw some fish, but it was mainly just pretty to look at, especially with the reflection of the waves from underwater. I saw a crab just running sideways and I followed him for a while, eventually he saw me and he scooted himself backwards into the sand a few times until he was completely invisible! It made me wonder how many other crabs was I swimming over? LOL! I also saw a lizard fish! It was the coolest thing I think I have seen here yet. This fish was swimming with its tail but also using his fins/arms to walk on top of the sand!! It was just skipping about and was super fast. I ended the snorkel looking at a really stunning cowfish, it was similar to the cheetah print ones I have mentioned seeing before, except this one was turquoise! It was beautiful!! Overall, I had a very successful snorkel :)

When we were done we hung out on the beach for a little bit and looked around the old coast guard buildings (which is why the beach is called coast guard) and then it was time to head back for dinner. I took a salt water shower right after dinner because I was covered in sand, and yes I feel clean now :) I'm actually laying in bed and really looking forward to my night. As soon as I post this blog I will have a relaxing evening watching a movie or reading a book, with no worries about studying or any homework, woo!! So with that said, good night everyone! :)

Here are some awesome pictures from today too!!

Just me :)

 Upside down jellyfish!

 Donkey

 Mangroves

 Pretty background!

 Beautiful<3

 In a cave

:)

Study, Study, Study!

Well, I don't have much to write again today. I slept in until 10:30 and woke up to eggs, bacon, and flavored scones! :) It was delicious. Throughout the day I studied, talked to my parents on skype, studied, did some laundry, studied, ate a turkey dinner, and studied some more. And now I am (you guessed it) still studying. I probably will continue until I fall asleep. The test tomorrow is a 2 hour exam, so there is a lot of information to cover. I'll let you all know how I did tomorrow! 

But...I do have all of my pictures over the past few days, so here you go! :)

 Hanging out at Daryl's last night!

A large group of us! :)

 Kelsey and I

 Doing handstand outside of Daryl's haha!

 The tent I slept in with 4 other girls on Friday night.

 Tent Roomies! LOL

 Alexis and I 

 Campfire :)

 This is from my dive on Friday afternoon.

 So beautiful!

 Nassau Grouper

 I love scuba diving!!!

Me checking out the coral :)

A beautiful morning...

Well, my night of camping was actually really fun! I thought I was going to be hot next to a group of girls in a small tent, and I also thought I was going to be attacked by bugs...but there was a nice breeze that fortunately eliminated both :) By the time we got there last night we had to hurry and put up our tents before it got dark. While we were doing this the staff was making a campfire! We all roasted marsh mellows and made some smores, we sang and played guitar, and we also played a bunch of little games. I felt like I was at a camp LOL! I woke up this morning to the sun, which was earlier than I had wanted...but I stepped outside and walked right to the water. It was absolutely beautiful :)

We got back just before lunch today, and directly after that it was time for community engagement. I taught the English lessons again today. We worked on grammar dealing with types of sentences and sentence structure. Again, our one student was very appreciative. He thanks me the entire time!! I really enjoy it :) After community engagement we had to do site clean up. I was in charge of cleaning out and wiping down all of the fridges, it was disgusting haha. After that I had free time until dinner and I read some of my book and took a nap :)

I woke up just in time for dinner, and since then I've been studying for my exam I have on Monday. I'm actually getting ready to go out right now to town! By the time we leave here the main restaurant, called Darrell's, will know all of us by our names :) Have a good night everyone!!

I'll put pictures up from camping tomorrow, they aren't uploaded yet...I apologize :)

Last day of classes!

Hi everyone! Today has been a really good day so far! We were able to sleep in an hour later, which was nice :) Then, we had our very last lecture!! After that we had a review for our exam on Monday that will be over all of the lectures we have had so far (I have a lot of studying to do this weekend). After that we had a couple of hours to study and relax before lunch. I got to talk to my parents on skype during that break and I loved it :) I miss you guys a lot and it was great to see you!! <3

After lunch I had another dive! The current was pretty strong today but it was still a good dive. We didn't see anything crazy, besides some huge grouper fish, hogfish, and barracuda. Other than that we were looking at the most beautiful scenery ever! The coral was joined into huge boulders and there were rows and rows of it. We were also swimming along side of a drop off so we got to look out and try to see if we could see anything. It was hard to make out some figures, which again made it kind of creepy, but like I said before it is hard not to get drawn to it. The visibility today was a little blurry, but for some reason it made the colors on the coral pop! They were so bright and it was absolutely gorgeous. We got some cool pictures, but that won't be up until tomorrow.

I just got done with dinner, and I'm posting this blog early because we are about to leave to go camping. We are staying the night on the beach tonight. I packed myself a TON of bug spray lol. I'm sorry to keep it so short but it is time for me to go. I'll be back tomorrow with some great pictures and news of how my over night trip went. Have a great night everyone!!

:)

Field Research: Day 1

Today was the first day where we didn't have to wake up and go straight to a lecture! :) It was great! Right after breakfast we went out in groups to different snorkel sites to collect data. I was part of the second group that went out...so for two hours this morning my other group got to work together to finish our paper! By the time we had to go out and snorkel we only had to do some last minute editing. For the field research, each group was in charge of collecting two different transect areas. Basically, we put down a huge measuring tape in a specific area (30 meters long) and documented all of the fish, coral, algae, etc. that we saw within 3 meters on both the left and right side of our transect line. It took about 40 minutes for each one. It was difficult to do because we also had to measure certain heights of some coral and determine what percentages of what were within our area, but I enjoyed every minute of it! When we got back we had to make sure we entered all of our data in a spreadsheet because we will be doing more than one day of field research. Depending on the weather, we should still get in two more days of field research next week before the groups have to analyze the data and create a presentation from it.

After lunch my group (for the paper that is due tomorrow) all got together and we finished our project! IT WAS THE BEST FEELING EVER! Again, we were supposed to go to the fishery plant today, but it was cancelled due to the lack of fish caught. Luckily, I still got my own little experience though. A few of my friends and I decided to walk into town to get some ice cream and snacks and on the way we stopped to watch the fisherman on the docks skin all of the fish for the day. The fisherman noticed me take pictures of him doing this and asked me to come try it...WHAT? haha! I was very nervous and disgusted at the same time but I did it. They were all laughing at me because of the face I was making LOL. He took the knife away quickly though as I was getting no where and was obviously not doing it right! We also played with the puppies that were just born a few days before we arrived on the island so they are only about 2 weeks old. They are soooo cute, I want to take one home! Finally after all of our little stops, we got to the store we originally set out for and brought back yummy snacks :) Once we all scarfed down ice cream, it was time for round 3 of the volleyball tournament. My team won today! We play best two out of three but we won the first two so we didn't even have to play another round. :)

Between volleyball and dinner I had time to take a nice saltwater shower (it is sad how much I enjoy those), and I actually feel decently clean right now :) Usually after my showers I like to stay in my room where I know I won't get dirty again. Especially because to go outside right now I would have to put on a ton of bug spray, and that is just a gross feeling. So, I'm just going to chill out for tonight, do a little homework and then watch a movie! I hope all of you have a relaxing evening as well, good night! :)

P.S. Tomorrow's blog will be early, as we are camping tomorrow night at the beach! :D

 The boat carrying all of our food!

 Studiously working...

 PUPPY! :)

 So cute!

 The fisherman skinning the fish.

 Me attempting to skin the fish lol.

 Volleyballing it up!

Scariest night of my life!

I'd like to start out my blog by letting you all know about my night last night. At about 2 a.m. here a huge thunderstorm broke out with rain, thunder, lightening, and wind. SO MUCH WIND. I woke up to it in the middle of a deep sleep and the first thing I thought of was everyone's clothing that was hanging on the clothes lines and if they were all going to be blown away. Luckily, as I was thinking about this I heard voices, apparently everyone else was thinking the same thing. I went outside and we all were frantically putting things away in people's rooms. When that was all done I laid back in bed and could not fall asleep for hours. All I could think about was if the door was going to be blown in, or the shutters knocked off, or even if some huge wave was going to come onto the research center. I was honestly scared for my life!! Eventually, we all woke up this morning to a very messy center and a gloomy day. 

Luckily, we didn't have a whole lot going on today, so the gloomy day set for a "relaxation" day. We started off learning about our next research project, which is again a group project. This one is much more interesting to me though because it has to do with marine life and actual research instead of policies and regulations (like our other project). Our group is determining the effects of fish population and coral reef cover inside and outside a Marine Protected Area. After we learned about everything we went out and did a practice research transect. Tomorrow we begin our actual field research. This project isn't due until next Friday, and we will continue our research until next Wednesday. After that we have until Friday to gather our data, analyze it, and make our powerpoint for Friday. It's going to be a lot of work and very time consuming, but it will definitely hold my attention :)

Once we finished our practice transect we were free to work on our projects that are due Friday until lunch. After lunch we had even more free time. We were supposed to go to a fish processing plant this afternoon today, but due to the storm last night none of the fisherman caught any fish today, so it had to be postponed to hopefully tomorrow. So, that left us with even more free time until dinner. It was awesome, a group of us made friendship bracelets (one of our favorite things to do here obviously) and watched "The Devil Wears Prada". Then, after dinner, we had even more spare time. So, now my group is trying to finish editing our paper! We are almost done, which is really exciting because I'm so over writing about this stuff (it has nothing to do with science and research). After this I am going to bed, and I can't wait haha! I just hope there isn't a storm tonight! Have a good rest of your night all! :)

P.S. Good news! Here are my pictures from my dive yesterday! :)

Green Sea Turtle

 A picture of me getting ready to take a picture.

 This is the huge Southern Stingray I was talking about, it was bigger than me!

 My dive group, I'm the second from the left in the back w/ the "OK" sign LOL.

 Some pretty fishies on the reef! 

 Me under the arch! :)

 Thumbs up! 

A little fun after our dive! :)

There are a ton of other pics too, I'll be putting them up on facebook soon :)

Waterfront activities all day!!

Hello all! :)

This morning I woke up to a boat blowing its horn (with a cute little song) which was actually really exciting because it was the boat carrying our next set of food! The past few days have consisted of pretty weird and bland meals, so knowing it is going to be spiced up a bit from here on out was wonderful!

For class today we had a basic excel quiz so that way our teacher knows we have an understanding of it for when we begin conducting our research and surveys this coming week. After that we had a quick lecture about REEF, which stands for Reef Environmental Education Foundation. Basically, it is a foundation that collects surveys from snorkelers, divers, or any other waterfront specialties, about species of fish they see underwater. The data (which includes the abundance of a specific species seen) is put on a web database that is free to anyone. The foundation requires no funding and its main goal is to gather volunteers to collect data during their recreational water activities for them. It is actually a really neat website, it is split up into about 7 regions and you click on the place you are at and it is easily set up for you to click on what you saw and choose an option for how many there were (e.g. "S" means single, "M" mean many, etc.). So now that we know all of our common names we headed out as a group to a new snorkel spot and did our own REEF survey! It was extremely difficult because you lose track fast since the fish swim all over the place, but I still had a great time!

By the time we came back it was lunch time, and shortly after that I was plunging myself back into the water again, but this time it was for a recreational dive :) I know I said this last time, but this dive was by far the best dive I have ever been on and my absolute favorite! We were supposed to go to a place called "The Maze", but the water was too choppy and it would have been too strong of a current. Instead we did what is called a "drift dive". Normally, we start at one spot and circle back around to end where we began, but today we just drifted along and one of the interns on the boat picked us back up at the end of our dive, so we were able to go a lot further and see way more! It was cool to not have to back track on what we had already seen. On the dive I saw 2 Green Sea Turtles (both of them close enough for me to touch!), I saw 2 Caribbean Reef Sharks also!!! They were both about 5 to 6 feet and were swimming all around us. They definitely knew we were there, but they were not bothered by us. They didn't leave where we were at, and I can finally say I have swam with the sharks!! :) When I really thought the dive could not get much better, my dive buddy spotted a HUGE sting ray on the ocean floor. It was seriously bigger than me, it had at least a 5 ft wing span. My dive master brought along her camera and took a picture of each of us alone with it so you all will be able to see what I'm talking about!! We also saw to 4ft long porcupine fish, they are the cutest fish I have ever seen LOL! What was really cool was we were able to end our dive at the arch that we had been to previously, so I got to go underneath it again and see all the big fish!! I also got a picture taken of me under there :) On top of all of the cool stuff I saw, throughout the entire drift we were going in and out of coral and it was absolutely beautiful! Our next dive is on Friday, and I'm eager to see if the dives will just be getting better and better each time! :)

After the dive we had the second round to our volleyball tournament. Unfortunately, my team did not win today, but we still have many chances to win the bracket so I'm not too worried yet ;) After that was dinner, and since then my project group and I have been working together trying to take out a big chunk of the paper. We will probably just have a little bit of editing to do on Thursday night. As for the rest of my night, I'll just be reading until I fall asleep :) I'm sorry but the pictures from today are not uploaded yet on the server, but as soon as my dive master puts them on I will show all of you! I'm off to lay in bed now, have a good night everyone!

Half-way through!

Can you believe it? I have been here for two weeks, and I only have two weeks left!! The time is going by super fast and before I know it I'll be on a plane to go home again! I'm sure it will be a bittersweet feeling...

But anyway, this morning after breakfast my group and I had almost 3 hours to work on our research paper that is due this Friday. We pretty much finished our outline and we're hoping to finish it by Wednesday so that way on Thursday at most all we will have to do is some editing. We are on a good track so far :) After our group work we had a wrap up lecture on tourism and then it was lunch. Following lunch all of us got some last minute studying in before our fish exam! I was part of the second group again this week so I got a little extra time which was helpful. Overall I think I did pretty good!:) The fish are definitely harder to identify because they are swimming around and sometimes it is hard to get a really good look at them, especially when you need to see a specific feature in order to determine what they are. But, I am pretty confident and I will let you all know what I got when I receive my grade!

Tonight after dinner we learned some "Dominican Dancing"! It was so much fun!! There were two dances we learned, the Merengue and the Bachata, and we were taught by two locals who are from the Dominican Republic. They were both pretty easy to learn and everyone had a blast! After that we just had our own dance party and there was even a little talent show going on! :) Once we were finished everyone was drenched in sweat haha! I'm sure we burned tons of calories. On a not so awesome note...I decided to go take a shower and happened to spot a cockroach enjoying the shower with me also, sooooo gross. Did you know cockroaches can fly? I sure didn't...and they are HUGE here, it's disgusting!!!

For the rest of my night I'll be doing some more research and probably read or watch a movie (BTW I watched "The Lion King" last night in bed, which was my all time favorite movie growing up! And I think it still is, it is most definitely a classic!) :) Everyone have a good night!!


Here are a few pictures from the past couple of nights! :)

 My friend Kelsey and I with our new buddy, Lars :) (we named him)

 Group of us girls!

 Melissa, Kelsey and I

 Dominican Dancing!

 The whole gang learning!

Me free-styling! ;)

P.S. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO GIVE A SHOUT OUT TO MY BEST FRIEND, MY SISTER...HAPPY BIRTHDAY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! I HOPE YOU HAD A WONDERFUL DAY, MISSING YOU TONS!!!!<3