Nothing like a shark nudge to get you motivated!

So this week was pretty exciting, guys.  Definitely several blog-worthy occurrences, and you know it's a good week when that happens... fewer roach stories and more sharks involved. Whoops! Spoiler Alert!

But first: Our dissection this week was arthropods (i.e. crabs, lobsters, etc), and the super cool part was the Blue Crab dissection.  My group caught a huge blue crab in our trawl last week, so we got to dissect our own catch, which was awesome!  Our speciman was at least 2x the blue crabs our classmates were using, so we got to see everything really well.  And it was a live dissection so that we could see the functions of the organs.  Wesley discovered that the crab can shoot what looks like water (and definitely isn't) about two feet away.  To say this in a nice way... he got marked as territory before the dissection started. But hey, it's all for science!

Group Project Update:  Team Worm is still going strong, and our video is even stronger.  After filming for a day and editing for two days, it is complete.  And it's the best video on worms ever.  Seriously, Team Worm is also Team Awesome and Team Winning because our awesome video will be winning at the competition next week.  When the class is over, I will post the video for all of you.  I know you're all on the edge of your seats, dying to see it!  You only have a week longer to wait!

Beach Update:  So I haven't been to the beach for a while with all this studying and junk.  That has changed this week.  I spend half of Tuesday and all of Wednesday on the beach.  I love beach days!  They are absolutely glorious!  Including the beautiful red skin that I've acquired. But Wednesday was especially exciting...  [Enter sharks]

Anna, Hannah, Angela, and I went to the beach in the morning.  Sun shining, waves glistening.  It was perfect. We grabbed the best spot on the beach and proceeded to enjoy our relaxing tanning time. A couple fishermen also joined us.  One on either side of our perfect spot.  And then a kayak went out in the water fishing.  And then a shrimp boat went by, obviously fishing.  So our perfect spot was surrounded by all of the fishermen that exist on this tiny island.  But no worries, there's plenty of ocean for us.  We can swim and still be a safe distance from their hooks.  So when it was about time to get in the water (because it gets so flippin hot!), we go swim out to the sandbar.  Felt a few fish swim around us... a couple more...or were they the same...or were they fish...pretty sure that was not scaley...pretty sure that was fleshy...and it had a large dorsal fin... oh, look lots of bubbles...the swimming thing is eating...eating a lot... So we're smart future marine biologists and can put all of this together.  We're swimming with sharks.  Cool.  I mean, it really was cool.  But there's this whole thing about being eaten by them that made us want to leave.  We were definitely in their space, near their food (thank you, fishermen), and they were obviously hungry.  So we calmly swam away, looked from the shore, and saw that there were at least three 4-ft-long lemon sharks where we were just swimming.  Word to the wise (or just those who don't like swimming with sharks), don't swim in the middle of a bunch of fishermen.  That was my second encounter with sharks in the wild- Nice!
And then we see 6 dolphins following the shrimp boat- Yes, we see that pretty frequently, but it is still really cool every time.  Then a remora came to us up by the shore.  These guys are really cool!  They have suction-cup-like-things on their heads.  Seriously, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go Google it.  I was very impressed that we saw one so close to shore- a sure sign that sharks are around too, but we already discovered that one.
Then you know the drill: tanning, the sun is too hot, water.  And when we went in the water this time, we walked a ways down the beach so that we would be away from the fishermen and the sharks won't be near us.  Look at us smart kids, using our brains!  It's too bad that sharks are dumb and don't follow our thought process.  As soon as we swim out, I kick something...  It feels large and fleshy... "Guys, I just kicked a shark"... And Angela thinks I was just messing with her until... Buuuudumm buudumm budum badum badum. "Ahhhhhhh!!!"  The shark swims right under her, very close.  Close enough that the dorsal fin lifted her in the water ever so slightly. And that, my friends, is closer than anyone's comfort bubble allows.  She just got a piggy back from a lemon shark. Ummm, no thank you.  We all go swim for the hills, or the beach rather. Who knew we could swim so quickly?  And with rip tides... very impressive, if I do say so myself.  Nothing like a shark nudge to get you motivated!  When we got to the shore, we saw those lovely shark dorsal fins to prove that we weren't going crazy. And then dolphins come, right on que, to make us happy again and want to stay in the water.  But we weren't about to swim out again.  Being near hungry sharks twice in one day is enough for me!

Coming Soon:  My class is on the big trip to Port Saint Joe and St. Andrews on Thursday and Friday, but I cannot go because I will be at my dear friend's wedding.  Congratulations Katelyn and Todd!!  It's unfortunate that I'm missing the class trip, but my roommate, Anna, may or may not be writing a blog about the trip just so the world (aka the cool people that read my blog) can know how awesome it was.  I say "may or may not" because she really might or might not.  She was interested, but non-committal, so we shall see.  I, on the other hand, will be a dancing/ partying bridesmaid this weekend.  I'm sure something blog-worthy will happen there too, so get excited for another exciting weekend in Hailey's life recorded in the best blog ever (aka The Daily Hailey).