Field Work: This time, it's personal

So second day of field work.

Yesterday, as you know, we loosened nuts on our tiles. Today we actually went out and collected them. And by we, I actually mean Jada. Let me explain.

Because the nuts were already loosened from yesterday, it doesn't take that much time to take off the tiles. Seeing as the reefs are only six feet or so under the surface, we decided to complete today on snorkel. The reasons why we would use snorkel are thus: it's a lot less stuff to get ready and pack, we can get on the boat faster, and when we are in the water we are not as encumbered with gear. We would SCUBA dive when we need to be under for longer, and we are doing something more labor intensive.

So I thought I like snorkeling more, but I am firmly in the SCUBA family now, at least for field work. The waves were more intense then yesterday, and even just floating on the surface, the water is lapping into your snorkel, forcing you to choke on salt water constantly. I don't even want to know how much water I swallowed today, probably way too much. Jada went down and unscrewed the nuts, and put the tiles in buckets. Since she has had a ton of practice, she can hold her breath for amounts of time that can only be described as inhuman. I, on the other hand, swim down (with my eight pound weight belt, still buoyant because of the ridiculous amounts of fat), am there for ten seconds or so, trying to put the nuts back on, and my lungs feel like they are about to explode. So Jada did most of it and I put on one or two nuts. I was quite the helper. Snorkeling is going to take a lot of work.

But things went so much better when the tiles were back in and we looked at them under the microscope. I think a lot of you have either heard me talk about the tiles, or actually seen them yourselves. What a difference to see them in person! For once on this trip, I actually felt really qualified to do something. I knew the algae there, I knew what I was looking for, it just felt great.

Another project I am working on during this trip is on this disease that is killing algae on our tiles. The disease is not well known, and only was recently discovered. We don't even know whether it is a virus, fungus, bacteria, etc. We also don't know how is spreads, the extent to which it kills, what kind of algae it kills, or anything. Jada and I have been corresponding with scientists and seeing what needs to be studied about it and what we already know. So one of my side projects will be tracking the spread of the disease over the time period in which we are here.

Scientists have always seemed to me to be a bit strange at the all consuming obsession they develop over their research. What a change to see this disease! Suddenly, I didn't care about dinner, time flew, and I started to want to skip the party at the station that night in order to keep doing work with the disease. We've only seen it on one tile so far, and I'm already obsessed. Real healthy, right?

Some people have asked about the food I've been eating, so I thought I'd address that here. In every country I travel to I see a big focus on one specific food. Here it is pork. Of course, pork is the one food I don't eat. So we are making efforts to avoid that. Yesterday we were invited to dinner with friends of Jada's and we had a lentil stew, and tonight Jada made shrimp stir fry. There is also this really great snack restaurant down the road and I've had cheeseburgers there. Yum. We also went out to lunch one day and had raw tuna, which had been marinated in lemon juice, then in coconut juice, in a stir fry salad. It is a local classic. Fish is really fresh here. Later, Jada and I are planning to make sushi with fish we get. Other than that, the supermarket is pretty regular. Although, the best produce is at the gas station. I have no idea either.

There has been a undergraduate program here for the past 2 months, and they are leaving tomorrow, so to celebrate they are throwing “Gump Prom” tonight. So that is where we are off to.

Love to all,
Emily