Look Closely 7/6/15

Ahhhh haaa!! Our very first in front of the class assignment. Today we did two really interesting exercises: a focal area and a focal species. For the focal species we paired (or in my case with Codee and Austin) tripled up with cameras and dive slates and chose an an area to survey for 10 minutes. In this 10 minutes we recorded every species that came and went and what they were doing in said 1x1m area in 1 minute increments. It was really challenging at first to make sure that everything got recorded but soon we got into a good rhythm and flow and I think we were ended up pretty thorough in the end. The next thing that we did was pick a focal species and perform the same observation techniques with a specific species. We were worried about chasing around a fast species so we were going to try for a seahorse that Codee had seen and on our way there we saw.........

I felt super duper cool after seeing these because I had only seen one at night with Dante. After we realized that the spotted eagle ray was jetting around way too fast for us, we decided to aim for something cool but much slower. We swam towards the sea horse but when we got there it seemed as though it had moved along so we headed over towards the area under the bridge. We knew that because of all of the growth under the dock on the poles that we would surely see something. We looked around and almost immediately stumbled upon a crab which we late identified as a Grapsus grapsus which is also known as a Sally Lightfoot crab. We surrounded the pole and made sure we could see the crab at every vantage point. After a couple of minutes another crab of the same species showed up and we watched their awkward but slightly aggressive encounters as they tried to figure out who got the pole as their territory. I spent most of the time observing and pondering what the crab might be thinking as he stealthily approached his competitor. After we collected all of our data we headed in and hit the computers to finish the last bits of our essays and other assignments while trying to make sure that all of the correct information and formatting was on out posters! As we were all getting up to present Dr. Gilchrist surprised us and told us that our posters were being sent back to the lab and we would have a real poster version of what we had made. Even though they weren't being presented at a symposium or anything, when Dr. Gilchrist told us that she was impressed I beamed with happiness. Having one of the top leading hermit crab researchers in the world say that she was impressed is, let's just say I am on my way!

After dinner we all spent the night outside and stared at the stars that were finally out. Ever since we have been here it's been pretty bad visibility to literally none. But tonight it was 1000% on point and perfect. You can even see the Milky Way! I was really tempted to sleep outside but after feeling like I was going to rub all my skin off from the bites I made my way up the hill once again. The other terrific thing that happened today was that Tyler finished her divemaster test!! Hooray!! She only has a few more skills to learn and then she will be off onto her next adventure, a backpacking trip through Central America. Tonight was another night where we all turned out onto the dock and had some good laughs about the "lio boomenecense" and "margarine man". I really enjoy that at least Dante and Tyler come and hang out with us at night. It reminds you that even though they cook and pick up the plates for you or take you out on dives, they are humans just like everyone else. Taking the time to asking about each other's lives is something that doesn't happen enough in the majority of my experience so being here has been a nice change. It was yet another good night. :)