Day 17: Call me Honda, Seafarer

Thomas, Gordan, and I paddled up and down the shore for about 5 hours today. Gordan and Thomas were looking for changes in  conductivity to find where fresh water seeps are located off shore. As they collected data, which was just paddling up and down the shore, I looked for places where reef fish would be. Although I did not see any fish today, I’m not too worried because I saw a few places that I think fish would be and I also saw patches of coral. When I came upon those places I marked GPS points so I know where to come back later. One area had a lot of coral, but it was near chinaman’s hat so it may be outside of the research area. Another place had coral near the shore which was right at the boarder of our study area. I have to revisit that place. I also saw some areas that did not have coral but the reef had quite a bit of spatial relief from the sand and I think those are very good places to revisit also.

Overall, I think it was a good day. We were fighting the waves and got flipped out of our boats a few times (thus I may not be worthy of the title Seafarer). One of the flips I almost lost my GPS. It fell out of my pocket as we flipped, but luckly Thomas saw it floating around about a minute later! Everything else was good I managed to grab my glasses just as it fell off my face. But by the end of the day Thomas and I had (almost) no problem at dealing with the waves.

Tomorrow I think I’ll snorkel at the places where I marked and see what I can see.