22:05 Today started with an early morning snorkel again, with DL, ML and the other Lattitude volunteers. I got to see the back end of a Soapfish and got a few more photos of other fish but nothing noteworthy.
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| My Best Soapfish Photo, A Fin (D.Philpot) |
A Soapfish by the way is a peculiar looking individual with an oddly elongated body, it sits perched on the sand, has an extremely upturned mouth and got its name because originally a diver put it down his swimming shorts where it released an irritating foamy soap-like material (protein). Unluckily or luckily for me they tend to disappear and wedge themselves in the smallest of spaces among rocks so all we got to see was its tail today. It also seemed to us that there were signs of a red tide where there were patches of red water in clear clouds whilst swimming about in the lagoon. On another side note, that Scorpionfish I touched was not seen in the same area today.
Upon returning
the water was out, so we carried freshwater from the stream, boiled it, and
stored it in various sized pans until the water system was back online. An interesting experience to say the
least.
Later on ML
taught me something about programming (as well as some more about computers)
with some practise using some of my old data, although I felt I really needed
to sit and practice with myself in the ‘driver’s seat’ as it was all new and
pretty complicated for me.
Once we had
had enough we decided to take a break and hike out of the park where I learnt a
lot more about ML, the birds he loves, as well as the park itself which was all
very interesting. Upon returning we had
a great discussion about deploying underwater data loggers, and both a Howler
Monkey and Racoon came very close to us.
This evening I
actually felt a little rough for the first time, though a quick rest/nap
certainly helped me out. ML made a
comment or two about me, the way I work, and my work itself for which I was
very humbled by. I hope I feel better in
the morning.