The Rundown of the Past Few Days

Here is a rundown of the past few days.

As part of our coursework, we were required to collect data to measure the health of coral reefs on Little Cayman. Such was done by laying down 30m transects and noting the percent coral cover half a meter on either side of the transect. Also, one m2 quadrats were placed at random points on the transect and the percentages of coral cover, substrate cover and algal cover were determined.

The project that I was involved with required us to monitor the growth of juvenile corals over a four year period. This monitoring project had been started in 2005 and I had analyzed the data of coral growth over that period of time. The coral growth data obtained at Little Cayman seems to be far more optimistic than at other parts of the Caribbean. Just to give you guys a heads up, coral reefs across the world are in imminent danger of collapse due to coral bleaching, coral diseases, over fishing and nutrient enrichment. I prepared a poster of my findings and will present it to soon.

We were also taken on a field trip to various sites on the island and our instructor explained the geological significance of the sites. We also fed banana peels to the Little Cayman Rock Iguana, which is endemic to Little Cayman. However, a conservation photographer who was with us during the time was quite upset with us baiting the iguana to get pretty pictures. We also went diving and jumping off a dock with a lot of us showboating our most acrobatic diving maneuvers. On our day off, we went to “Point of Sand’ which is an absolutely gorgeous beach, for a barbeque and some much needed relaxation. We also were quite excited to go the hermit crab races where we were allowed to name and race our own hermit crab.

Pictures will be up soon.
Nick