The Island is Sinking

Monday, June 10, 2013

Dauphin Island has been crying since Angela left on Sunday.  Coincidence? I think not.  It's not just rain though.  It's sheets of water drowning the island.  Roads are literally inches under water.  I'm pretty sure the island is not an island anymore... it's completely under water.  So that's pretty exciting.  Anna and I are passing the time with some super cool, new Zumba moves. 

In class we did some Visum, looking through microscopes. I mostly did not find what we needed to, but my slide was full of crab larvae.  It's pretty cool looking, actually! Maybe it'll come in handy for my Invert class next session.

After class it's to the lab we go to work on our "Super" experiment.  I say super as in large/over-the-top rather than ridiculously awesome (though, I guess it is ridiculously awesome as well).  We're working on our Soil Organic Matter (SOM), but there was a crab in one of our test tubes and no one in our group could find the thing. Guess we'll just have some more SOM in that tube. What can ya do?

Late night adventure: This is a very random story: (Only read if you care about our dessert catastrophe)

We decided to try the new coffee shop because its grand opening way "today."  Anna was going to satisfy her coffee addiction, and I was going to eat a delicious bear claw.  It was all planned out... until it was closed... for a whole week longer! It doesn't open until next Tuesday and they just changed the sign today.  Not cool!  But then Anna and I decided we'd just change our plans and go try the snow cone shack nearby.  Worst idea ever.  That stuff tasted awful, and that is saying something because I am not a picky eater at all.  I'm talkin dirty-icy-no-flavor-except-the-bad-after-taste snow cone.  I rather eat juncus than this stuff.  (If you don't know what Juncus is, please educate yourself with my prior post: Journey through the Juncus Jungle.) If you did read my post on juncus, you understand the seriousness of the terribleness of this snow cone.  I can not wait to go back to Miami Ice in Florence!  They have REAL snow cones that taste almost like heaven.  But back to Anna and my grave situation... we needed a dessert and two places have already disappointed us.  So let's go find civilization and dessert in one!  Across the bridge we go... and there's a bait shop and a couple restaurants that are already closed... at 8:30 at night.  Really? So that was a waste of half an hour.  But there is a restaurant called the Islander, that we think closes at 9 and it's 9... But we're going to try it anyways.  We're that desperate. And we were right.  They closed at 9, but they graciously sat up anyways.  And we got THE BEST bread pudding ever.  It was ginormous, gooey, warm, beautiful, wonderful, craving-satisfying dessert.  Word to the wise: Islanders is a Yes.  Snow Cones are a NO.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The rain stopped.  Class in the morning.  Beach in the afternoon.  Walk on the beach after dinner.  I wasn't kidding when I said I'm Beach bummin it. Love it!!  

Though getting to the beach was fun on our nice, flooded island.  Rule #2, always have good tires on this island.  Wait. That was Rule #1; I always get those mixed up.

Andddd.... I GOT A TANNNNN!! Angela said so, so it's obviously true.  Everyone should note that this is a MIRACLE.

And I got to Skype with my wonderful Yogini. Day made!

Tourist Day Photo Roll

Saturday, June 8, 2013
AKA Tourist Day!

Yup, we went there.  Dauphin Island is a super cute little town, and it needed to be documented. Please note that it only took us a couple hours to document the entire town.  Here's a mini photo roll of the day:

1.  In front of a lighthouse that doesn't actually work.  

2.  Found the faucet that leads to the ocean!

3.  Surfer Crossing.  Surfers always have the right of way.

I also had a couple friends visit me!  Shoutout to Brittany and Sami!  It was so great to see these wonderful girls and their sweet families and catch up a little bit. It felt like a little bit of home came to Dauphin Island.

It was a great day in Perdido Bay!

It's Friday and that means.... Field Trip Dayyyy!!  So this past Friday, my Botany class went to Perdido, Florida!  It was about a 2 hour drive (including the ferry) to arrive at a beautiful beach with white sand, crystal clear water, little shells everywhere, the whole nine yards!  And we saw this beautiful scene...

Nice, right??

We stopped, put some sunscreen on, changed into our gear in the pavilion, and then Dr. Just told us to load back into the vans. Wait. What?  Apparently we're not at our destination quite yet.  But no worries, Perdido is beautiful; we're probably just going to an inlet for some more seclusion and fewer waves.  Well, that's exactly what happened; we stopped to snorkel at an inlet.  But this inlet was not like the photo above.  No, sir.  It was muddy, murky, cold, and surrounded by...wait for it... juncus.  Because we didn't get enough of that junk on Tuesday! But I wasn't bitter. This was the first time I got to use my brand new, super cool snorkeling equipment, and I was going to enjoy every minute of that dirty, freezing water!  I mean, look at this gear...

 You can NOT be sad when using such beautiful equipment.  It's impossible.

(And yes, I am obsessed with Finding Nemo... Just in case you were wondering.)

So we go out to the less than perfect waters and collect sea grasses until our hearts' content.  We sifted some of the Thalassia or "Turtle Seagrass" from the sediment so that we could look at the roots and then brought our findings back to the pavilion that we started at.  So we didn't get to snorkel there, but we did get a nice view for a while there.  At the pavilion, we counted leaves, measured the length of the root, and counted nodes for Thalassia to find out how old the seagrass was. I received a congratulatory fist bump from Just for counting 73 nodes on one of my roots.  Apparently 4 year old sea grass in this inlet is amazing. What can I say?  It was obviously "super seagrass"... there's no other explanation.

When we were done with all of that fun stuff, we had some extra time before we had to leave.  Yay for efficiency and team work!  So we got to go to the beautiful beach after all!! And then back to the lab!

Side note: We drove through Orange Beach, and I just want to say that it is awesome there. There are things there! Like stores and stuff. Almost forgot those existed. So, if you're looking for a new vacay destination, Orange Beach looks like a good choice to me!

But back to reality... I'm at Dauphin Island after a day in Perdido.  We decided to take a walk on beach, which is a pretty regular after-dinner ritual for us.  But this time, we found a trigger fish washed up on the beach.  And that is some exciting stuff right there. One of my UNA friends, Angela, needs to catch 40 different species of fish for her Vertebrate class. So what do we do?  Pick it up and carry it all the way back to the Sea Lab.  Because that's totally normal behavior. But the whole walk back, everyone and their mother (literally) stopped us to look at the dead fish. Very sweet, friendly people here, I might add!  Oh, and we saved a dog's life. That was cool too.

Now what to do after such an eventful walk on the beach...Smoothies and Movies! Because it rhymes.  But that didn't actually happen... We did, however, have some milkshakes that brought boys to the yard. Or not... But only because we don't have a yard- we have a beach.  And mermaids were there (Anna & Angela will back me up on this one), so it's all good.

Journey through the Juncus Jungle

So my group did not like my title idea, but I still think it's brilliant.  The alliteration just makes me want to read all about that Juncus!  And it would definitely stick out in a Scientific Journal, just sayin.  But on to the explanation because I'm pretty positive that no one knows what Juncus is...

Juncus is found in marshes.  It looks like grass that is as tall as me, but its ends are like needles and they feel very stabby. This is what my group project members and I walked through for 5 hours on Tuesday.  We decided our project would focus on Grand Bay marsh in Mississippi, about 1 hour and 15 minutes from the Sea Lab.  We gathered data on 9 different criteria in 20 different transects to see if there are any conclusions we can draw about the plant dominance and diversity in the marsh.  Oh, and this is a 3 week project start to end- data collection, data analysis, presentation ready.  Yes, we are insane.  But we have a really cool project, so it's all good.

Our fun day in the marsh:
Started at 6am!! Each of us took our designated equipment for the test we were supposed to run at each transect.  My job was soil organic matter (SOM), so I collected dirt. It was almost like making mud pies in test tubes.  Science is really just a bunch of adults that want to act like kids forever, I'm convinced.
So let me tell you how this juncus stuff works... It stabs you. Literally everywhere.  And we walked in it for almost two miles, two very stabby/muddy/hot miles.  I have little cuts everywhere, covering my legs and getting my arms pretty bad too.  But when we were done for the day, our cut legs were covered/coated/slathered in mud.  Trying to clean all of that dirt off... it stung just a bit. But even with all of that juncus attacking, the horseflys that tried to eat us, and the mud monsters sucking us into the Earth, it was a super cool experience!  Do I want to work in juncus marshes for the rest of my life, probably not. But I just finished my first field research collection ever!  This is some legit Marine Biology going on right here! (And another positive: The mud was a great exfoliate; even with our bajillion cuts, our legs are super soft.)

My muddy, Juncus-lovin research group!

So now that the field collection is complete, we can start collecting some data in the lab, then start analyzing and putting the project together.  This weekend's project is to finish counting all of the dead and live leaves and measure live leaves.  From there, we have fun machines to give us some data.  It'll be coming together soon!

And now I am off to get everything ready for tomorrow!  We're leaving at 7:30am to catch the Ferry tomorrow.  We're going snorkeling in Perdido, and I am super pumped!  I get to use my brand new snorkeling equipment!!  So you all will get an update on that soon!

Double Decades

May 31, 2013

Yeahhh Buddy!  I'm 20!! Goodbye, teenage years, I'll never see you again.  But how does one celebrate their birthday at DISL?  Let me tell you...

First field trip to Airport Marsh and Fort Morgan!  Two local marshes.  And we got to collect different phytoplankton and name it and compare it and fun things like that.  Long story short, we scraped rocks.  And while most of you think that sounds terrible, I felt super sciencey, and I loved it!

Then everyone and their mother went to Fiesta Friday at some Mexican Restaurant.  There was delicious fried ice cream and super terrible karaoke... what's not to love about that?!

So after that crazy night out eating ice cream, a beautiful beach Saturday was exactly what we needed!  This continued on Sunday after we went to the only church on the island.  So glad that little Baptist Church exists.

**Update:  We discovered another road on the island, and it's a bunch of churches.  Really, they're all on the same road, which I think is pretty cute.  We have Methodist, Episcopal, and Catholic Churches here too!  Which means we're going to go "Church Shopping/ Exploring.   It's looking like there's maybe, just maybe, a little bit of civilization here.

Wake Up Call

Most of my first week:

If you go to UNA, you may or may not know that we have a Marine Biology program.  It's super small, and before coming to DISL, I felt like I was the only Marine Biology major on the face of the planet.  But on my first day at DISL, I found people who go to UNA. What?! What?! You mean that there are other people who are just like me and we haven't met before??  Well that ended very quickly.  We found each other and we shall never separate.  I love our little UNA group!  It feels like home.  And all we talk about is nerdy marine biology things.  Seriously, where have you girls been all my life?!  I believe the count of UNA Marine Biology majors that I know about is up to 7.  We are movin up, marine bio majors!  

Day before classes started, we had 20 DISL students go to the beach all day.  It was nice to meet everyone and it was tons of fun!  I learned how to play Redneck Golf.  Oh, and I'm a pro at it.  Florence is wearing off on me, y'all! ;) But while we were at the beach, someone saw a dolphin and as soon as he said something, everyone in our group stopped what they were doing and started talking about what the dolphins were doing/ why they were swimming that way/etc.  This is the moment that I felt I belonged here. Where else do you get enthusiasm like that?? Nowhere but DISL.

So here's my little wake up call:

This is not college.  Nope. Not at all.  This, my friends, is glorified camp.  Super small room, cafeteria food, spend your life outside, and the craziest one for me: no campus activities.  Now I'm not complaining at all!  I really love that I can bum it all day, erryday.  And having "nothing to do" here is just studying and going to the pool and the beach. I don't have to run around in a million directions like I normally do.  And while it took me a minute to adjust to that, I have to say, it's really nice to relax a bit!  I have time to...wait for it... read!  I've already read a couple books and a third one is in the mail coming to me. What is this? Awesomeness. Beach bummin awesomeness.

My Classes:

This is the First of Two Sessions that I will be taking here.  I'm in Marine Botany with Dr. Just Cebrian.  And next session I'll be taking Marine Invertebrates with Dr. Carmichael, but you'll hear about that later.  My current professor, Just, is just awesome! (see what I did there?) He is so enthusiastic with his teaching that learning is way more fun than it should be!  It's wonderful!  I never knew plants could be so exciting.  Class is only Monday, Thursday, and Friday for full days and Tuesday for a half day in the morning.  So Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday all day is beach bum time!  With class, I will be going on three trips, one being overnight.  I also get to do a group research project for half of my grade.  My group is six brilliant girls and we are going to rock everyone's socks off with out project.  I'm working on one of my goals in life: Be published in a Scientific Journal.  It's going to happen.  

Some of my spare time:

Shark fishing.  Yup, I went there.  We fished from the shore, so no boat was needed.  Unfortunately, I am a pro at catching Catfish. I caught like 10 of them before giving up.  So we were not successful at catching a shark this time.  But one of these days, it'll happen.  It was still fun to go fishing at night!  I've never done that before.

Lighthouse Bakery.  Really cute coffee shop.  Out of the sun, avoiding the lobster look. Delicious cinnamon rolls.  WiFi and cell service.  We spend a lot of time here.

WalMart. Guys, the closest WalMart is like 30 minutes away. The Stuggle.  Really though, we plan WalMart trips... But the road trip is always a fun one.  Especially with Macklemore on the radio and Anna and Angela jammin out with me.

Red Box Nights.  So far, we've had two. And we watch the cheesiest Chick Flicks ever.  It's good times.

180º to Dauphin Island Sea Lab

This blog is about to be totally redirected.  Those of you who read any of my past posts know that I started this blog for a requirement for a class I was taking through the Honors Program at UNA.  You also might have noticed that my last post was 6 months ago... Yeah.  Blogging didn't become a habit for me.  But I'm changing that TODAY.

If you're on my Facebook or have talked to me for more than like two minutes in the past couple of months, you should know that I'm spending my summer at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Dauphin Island, AL.  I know I've told pretty much everyone because I'm super pumped about it!  Here I will be taking classes for my marine biology requirements this summer and next summer.  Many of you asked me to update you on my life and what's going on at the Sea Lab, how classes are, what I'm doing, etc.  And I would really really love to call up all of you and chat, but unfortunately, that's impossible.  Not only is there not enough time in the day, but I have AWFUL reception here.  Not like my-carrier-stinks bad reception, but more like my-carrier-suddenly-dropped-off-the-face-of-the-planet-and-does-not-exist-anymore bad reception.  Seriously, when I get a text, it's a highlight to my day because I feel like I am still somehow connected to the outside world.  I would not do well secluded on a deserted island.  So if you do text me, I will get it eventually and it WILL make my day!  But if I don't reply for a day, you should know it's the reception.  I will reply as soon as I get a bar on my phone. Promise!  Don't think I've been eaten by a shark or anything like that.  But if that does happen, you'll get an update on this blog!  And now you're all going to hope a shark attacks me so that you can have something fun to read... sorry, guys, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Anyways...back to the topic at hand. I am putting all things DISL on this blog now.  Sorry for the random redirection, but I don't have a blog title more clever than The Daily Hailey, so it's just staying here.  I'll put a link on Facebook when I update this.  I will do it at least once a week, try to keep it short and sweet- only putting things on here that I'd think some of you might care about.  But if there is anything you want to know about, ask away!  Especially you future DISL students.  I know I came in blind, and I'd hate for you to have to do the same thing.

Adios for now!