Fun with Plankton

Today has been the prettiest day yet. It rained for a few minutes this morning but was sunny and slightly breezy for the rest of the day. Today we looked at plankton. We had samples of plankton from three different places around the island. Our goal was to look through the samples to determine the number of species in there and the number of individuals per species. It was quite a trip. It's really difficult to count tiny animals when you don't really know what they are and they keep moving around when the water gets bumped. We made it work though. During our lunch break we all sat on the edge of the dock and enjoyed the sun. We tried to feed some bread to the fish swimming by but they didn't want any. I took a nap on the dock later during our afternoon break. It was quite amazing. In our samples I found a crazy creature called a whip shrimp. Here's a picture through the microscope. It wasn't very good. But I saw his eyes staring back at me and was a bit startled.

When we were done counting and playing with the statistics, the boys in my group decided they wanted to go swimming. The first guy dove in and came up sputtering but the water took away his breath so he couldn't tell the others it was too cold to get in. Needless to say they didn't stay in long.

After the boys got out I found a sea hare.

It's related to snails, slugs, clams, etc. I picked it up and passed it around for everyone to touch. When they're scared they ink purple and it smells like roses.

My hands were dyed purple for the rest of the evening. It's about the size of a small football. So now we're back in the lab getting ready to look at some more stats and plan for our sea grass expedition tomorrow.

Also, after I posted last night we went to the Passing Wind, the bar on campus here. It was quite a trip. The locals put a goat in the pub and locked the door expecting us to freak out. Minela took pictures instead. I'll try to get a copy of it soon! We also taught our English counterparts some drinking games. Apparently their teachers told them not to get the American's drunk... but they didn't warn them about us! Time for more plankton!