Today we start our schedule for chores. We are paired for chores and each team has a responsibility. One team has clean-up (Dalen and I have this today) another does cooking, and the final pair is responsible for data collection-they make sure the data sheets have been filled out correctly and everything is legible.

A bit more training this morning-we went over how to use the GPS, wind instruments, and the Secchi disk. We met Landy, our boat operator, at 10:00 a.m. and headed out to look for manatees. We did our weather check and headed for Gilroy's Grassbed. We didn't see anything until we'd started collecting the environmental data when I heard a noise behind me. Landy and Pam called out at the same time: Manatee!

The manatee swam right for the boat until he spotted us, then he turned and swam away. However, he'd come close enough to get a look at the last half of his body as he turned. Caryn tried to get in the water to get pictures, but he was gone.

Once the manatee was gone, we went back to work. We collected air temperature, wind speed, direction, sea state, salinity, and turbidity. We also took the water temperature at the surface, and on the bottom, and then we counted sea grass. I figured out that it was much easier to count sea grass if I made my neck/head area heavier than the rest of my body. Wrapping the weights around my neck, I'd dive to the bottom and begin counting. Once I learned this technique, counting sea grass became one of my favorite activities.

Sea grass counting/sampling includes: someone throws four ½ meter quadrates off the boat in random locations. You dive down, and count the grass stalks in that quadrate. Meanwhile, someone else is doing a percentile count on a 1-meter square. Caryn and Pam have a 1 meter square made of pvc piping that has lines strung along to split it into 100 equal squares. Someone dives down and counts the number of squares with grass in them. This is the percentage of sea grass coverage on the bottom.

After the grass has been counted, we bring out the beast. This is a 2-foot long piece of about 8 inch pvc pipe with a cap on the top. The beast is used to take core samples of the bottom. The procedure here is, we find quadrant A from our quadrates, drive the beast into the sand about 6 inches, put the cap on which creates a suction, and pull up the core sample. This is dumped into a mesh bag and rinsed until all you have left is organic material. We take this back to camp to do some more experiments and documentation.

In all, it takes about an hour to do a site. Once the data collection is done and the appropriate forms filled out, we head off to the next study site and repeat. The rest of the day was filled with the same routine--watching for manatees, counting seagrass (Jack and I were partners off the port side of the boat) and collecting core samples.

Nearly everyone got some sunburn-mine was on my lower back-but only Louise and Debbie got really burned. Everyone learned an important lesson: sunscreen and lots of it. Reapply the sunscreen often, and if you can bear the heat, cover up with a shirt and hat as much as possible. We were back at camp around 4:30. Time to wash up and get the salt off everything.

Dinner tonight consisted of Caryn's bar-b-que chicken, which I'm told was great, and coleslaw and beans. We had dinner late, so it was after 9:00 by the time Dalen and I had the kitchen cleaned up.

We went to bed around 9:15. Thunderstorms woke us up at 10:00. The wind blew very hard and I kept waiting for the roof to blow off. But the dorm was strong and the storm blew itself out. I fell back to sleep to the sound of rain pelting the tin roof.