Wednesday, June 18, 2014

I'm On A Boat!

On Tuesday, the second day back at USFSP we prepared for our 12-hour journey on the research vessel known as the Weatherbird. The tasks at hand were CTD, Water Quality, Neuston, Bongos, Otter net, and dredge. The class was divided small groups each taking on one or two tasks per site. My group was the best it included Tiffany, Lana, and myself. The two sites consisted of offshore 18.25 miles and inshore about 2 miles from Skyway. The tasks that my group were responsible for was Neuston and bongos at the offshore site 1. At the inshore site 2 my group was responsible for the CTD and Otter net. Despite each group handling their assigned task all groups were responsible for sorting and identifying the specimens and contents harvested in Neuston, bongos, otter net, and dredge.  The process of sorting and identifying was by far the most time consuming, frustrating, and fun experience. The food on this boat was provided by chef Tom and in my opinion was one of the best meals that we had so far. The task that my group did that I enjoyed the most was the Otter net because I love seeing all the corals, vertebrates, invertebrates, and algae’s that we collected. The only sad thing was a lot of times the specimens collected would die during the sorting and identifying process but when we were able to we returned some alive. Overall this was an invaluable experience and I love all my classmates, crew members, and wouldn't change any of them for anybody else.








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