Dry Times Day 7

It was really nice to be able to sleep in today.  I happily overslept past breakfast and relaxed in bed for a bit after waking up.  At around 9:30 I watched the new Game of Thrones which was really good and super gory.  Shortly after I watched the first episode of House of Cards and then it was time for lunch.  On my way over to the dining hall, I walked on the beach and took a few pictures of the artificial reef balls.  These reef balls are part of  a cool project that was done here to provide more hard substrate for corals and other organisms to settle on.  Since corals are the foundation species that build the reefs, they exclusively provide the structure necessary for other organisms to survive.  With reef degradation due to warming oceans, more intense storms, and rising ocean acidity, providing more suitable habitat for these organisms to grow and thrive on can combat these negative impacts to a small degree.  I definitely want to snorkel off the beach at some point to check out how many of these reef balls there are and how the communities on and inside them are doing. 

After lunch, I spent the afternoon working on memorizing more reef fish as well as taking some pictures in CEI’s mangrove habitat.  Mangroves are incredibly diverse intertidal habitats that are formed by a large variety of plants that can live on land and submerged in saline waters.  In essence, they are form the wetland or marsh habitats of the tropics.  Here is a really cool link to a National Geographic article on mangroves where you can learn much more about them http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/02/mangroves/warne-text.  The walkway that connects the Island School to the research area of CEI goes through this awesome mangrove habitat that has a cool community of organisms that can be observed looking down from the walkway.  Among my favorite organisms to take photos of are definitely the upside down jellyfish.  These organisms, as their common name indicates, are jellies that bury themselves upside down in the mud.  What is left above the mud are their tentacles that radiate out from their mouths much like an anemone’s tentacles do.  Looking down at the mangrove pools, these jellies are dotted all over the mud which is quite a sight to behold.  Also, there were a number of grey snapper that I saw cruising through the mangrove plants that I “snapped” some photos of J.  

After my photo session, I went back to memorizing more fish before dinner.  After dinner, I finished up my studying of fish for the day and now I am working on finishing up my blog before bed.  Hopefully I’ll get some decent sleep tonight so that I am ready to go with plenty of fuel in the tank for our long day of diving tomorrow.  Until later.