Morning: We awoke bright and early on our first full day here in San Salvador, Bahamas. After breakfast it was time for us to get ready and venture out for our first snorkeling experience. We walked down the road to the beach really close to the GRC and it was time to get in the water. The environment that we were in was mostly sea grass, however it was still home to many different types of organisms. Some of the organisms we saw were juvenile cushion sea stars, slippery dick juveniles, helmet snails, and some people even saw jellyfish! All in all the morning was a success in our first San Salvador sea adventure.
Afternoon: After a delicious lunch it was time for us to head out again for the second part of our day. We went down the road in the opposite direction that we went in our morning trip, to another section of beach where we would soon be able to explore the reefs of The Bahamas. As we entered the water we were immediately surrounded by many different reef fish and many different corals, which was a drastic difference from what we saw earlier. Some of the organisms we saw were, Blue Tang, Sea Urchins, Yellow Tail Snappers, Bluehead, and an amazing Juvenile Nassau Grouper. It was then time to make our way back to shore and head back to campus.
Evening: It was dinner time at the GRC and all of us had to line up to get some food. Everyone then came to the realization to never pass up on the cake. Following dinner us students were able to enjoy some down time before class. Some people took a power nap while some people went out and enjoyed the sunlight before the gorgeous sun set. As we all entered class we were able to see that some of us were extremely sunburned. Luckily when we sat down we were graced with the gift of aloe. While in class we were given a quick crash course on organisms. Finally, it was time to create our research groups for our main project while we are her in the Bahamas. After a really long day all of us were extremely happy to be able to go back to our rooms and remedy our sunburns and get to sleep.
-MC Lynch '20, Michael Sherman '20, Caylin Ashcraft '20