Just Another Day Saving the World
By the end of my six weeks, I was not only doing fish transects, but I was also able to help collect coral data too. Most of the data was collected to assist one of the volunteers, Amie, who was doing her dissertation as a part of being on the project.
Out to collect some data
To start, I helped by collecting measurements and health profiles of randomly sampled coral along the reef.
Sometimes Amie would have us scribe or measure the samples she took. And sometimes I performed the sampling myself.
It's much harder to write underwater than it looks
Whoo. So exciting.
A few of us would also take transect videos for Amie to review later. This meant we could cover more sites more quickly, since she could review the videos later and note the coral present for her dataset.
The camera being crucial for success
Looks just like a fish transect
Ok, I'll stop with the corals. You get the idea.
We sampled both forereef and backreef sites just like we did with fish. Learning the different species of coral definitely made being under the water even more cool. Not only could I recognize the fish, but by the end I could appreciate the coral too, which just made the whole experience more complete, if you ask me.
Elkhorn point
Lobe star coral
So we gotta make sure its doing ok
Trying to save the world is hard work
But thankfully I don't do it alone
In all seriousness, getting to help collect coral measurements and transects was way cool. The fish were flashy, but being down on the ocean floor, there is so much more to see than just the fish. Collecting all this data actually isn't easy work. There are so many variables to complicate matters, and getting to do it for myself gave me an appreciation for what scientists are out there trying to do everyday. I'm just thankful they let me hold a slate.
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