Good morning, Tigers! We started off our morning with delicious French toast and sausage鈥ne of our favorite breakfast meals! After breakfast, we were fortunate enough to get a break and to rest up for a long day ahead of us. The past few days have been pretty cloudy, but today we were blessed with sunny skies and a light breeze! We met in our lab around 11:30am to go over the rest of our day. After lunch, we lathered on tons of sunscreen and bug spray, and headed to the truck to our next adventure!
We began our walk to Cut Cay, which is a small point off of North Point. The initial hike was around an hour, going through steep cliffs, rocks, and plant trails. We successfully climbed our way to our destination, an intertidal zone off the coast of the cay. Although there were some nerve-wracking spots to climb, we thankfully had our Tevas and Chacos to save our feet from the Karst and slippery spots. The view was stunning; waves were crashing along the shore, birds like the boobies were soaring around, and iguanas were scurrying through the bushes. The sight was definitely worth the lengthy and challenging hike there. Once we got there, we channeled our inner marine biologist and set up two separate transects to observe the difference in species diversity within different tidal zones. We counted hundreds of nerites (snails) and limpets (also snails), which was very tedious, but we learned many different species! After the two hours of experimenting, we headed back to the truck with our bellies rumbling for dinner. We took a different route, through the waters. Rather than climbing back up the cliff, we went down to calmer waters to wade through the beaches. By the end of the walk, most of our pants were completely saturated, since some points of the water hit our thighs and hips!
After the long walk back, we quickly dried off and changed into clean clothes and then headed to dinner. Tonight was pineapple ham, rice, beans, salad and carrot cake. We then ended the evening listening to peer presentations about previous sites that we have been to. Tonight, Connor and Parker talked about Bonefish Bay and listed out pros and cons about the conditions and organisms that can be found there. Haley and Wyatt presented on East Beach and pointed out the beach vegetation. Along with their presentation, they also included the medicinal uses and the overall pros and cons to each plant. After the presentations we were all pretty tired and decided to each do our own thing.
-Jenna van der Biezen 鈥�27 & Olivia Follick 鈥�26
Love the updates and photos! :)