October 2, 2005

Hi again,

Well, things have settled down into a weekly pattern again.  Sunday, our day off, flies by and then the rest of the week involves morning lectures and afternoon waterfront (diving, snorkeling, science exercise) activities.  Then we have dinner and an evening lecture of some sort.  My life revolves around our meals (not too surprising perhaps).  We are two-thirds of the way through our ID sessions.  The students have managed to learn, more or less, their mangroves, fish and algae.  This week we will do corals and invertebrates and then we’re done with the IDs.  This past month has gone by quite quickly. I have been working on several side projects and the routine schedule has made the days fly by.  The water has been quite nice and I have been enjoying taking lots of pictures with my new underwater camera.  At some point, I will put more photos online for you so you can see what I have been looking at.  Today we went for a nice, relaxing dive.  There are 18 students who dive this semester so there is plenty of dive-leading occurring for the interns.  However, leading a bunch of students, although enjoyable, is not very relaxing and we are limited to relatively shallow dives.  Sunday “fun” dives with other staff members are always a treat and we dive deep along the coral wall that separates the Caicos Bank from the neighboring deep (600-1000 ft) Columbus Passage.  It’s quite surreal looking down into a blue abyss with nothing below you and nothing in front of you except a vertical wall covered with encrusting sponge and algae of shapes and sizes that defy anything you might normally consider “life.”

Well, other than that, not much is happening. I look forward to a small at the end of this month and some of the upcoming field exercises that will allow me to visit some less-frequented spots around the island.

Happy Fall y’all

Brooke