May 17, 2008 Bahamas Research Cruise

Day 5

We started the day off of Goulding Cay. Two scientist, Sandra and Stephanie went down in the sub in the morning and saw many interesting sea urchins (see picture). While they were in the submersible, we sorted through plankton caught at the surface of the ocean using a plankton net. We found some exciting larvae (see picture). After the sub returned to the surface and we put the urchins collected in sea water in a cold room.

We ran out of the chemicals needed to spawn urchins (or make them give off babies), so we steamed over to Nassau, the capitol of the Bahamas to pick up more chemicals. Many people went ashore to Nassau and Paradise Island. We saw the straw market, where Bahamian women make baskets of native grasses. Additionally we went to the historic Fort Fincastle that was built in 1793 on the highest point of Nassau. As a good lookout point, Fort Fincastle was a place of protection for the town of Nassau and the harbor. Finally, some of us visited a historic Anglican Church and an aquarium with lots of cool sea animals.

I went down in the back of the sub in the afternoon. I saw mostly mud, fish, sea urchins, anemones, and sea stars. We collected different types of sea urchins. I also got a quick view of a squid that shot ink out at the sub to distract us as it swam away. It was really cool. On the way up in the sub when it became light enough to see all the bubbles of air released from the sub floated up and surrounded the sub like a curtain of sequins. The air bubbles were flat. I am hoping my students may have a hypothesis about why the air bubbles were flat and not filled out bubbles. We’ll be taking the Styrofoam cups down tomorrow as well.

More in a few days.

-Maya (Ms. Wolf)