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! :)