Today we did some more of the intro lectures and we went swimming! We started at the shore and instantly found like 100 creatures and Gustav could barely speak fast enough to tell us about everything there. We walked to the rocks too and everything was awesome. We did the grass bed right outside of the dorm room. We saw some sea stars, crabs, sponges, sea hares, and hermit crabs. It was hard to snorkel after so long and I’m coughing a bit. Lunch was pasta yay and dinner was rice and beans. Everyone is still great and I’m super excited for the month. Found some volleyball people, hehe, but the court is cement so idk if we will play much. The highlight of today came from cards against humanity and when professor Gustav was reading all the cards. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. It was great and bonding was fantastic. We started looking through reference books and I loved all the stuff we are going to be seeing soon. It’s like my plant class but a lot more. I’m excited to see how learning about all these creates changes my perception. The ocean is going to be so much cooler after this class and I want to keep learning. The electricity went out with the rain storm that is here and we kinda hope that we don’t have to go in the rain cause our wet suits are still wet. But still loving it. Only good thoughts!

Bahamas day 1 (couldn’t change the date)

So I started out really nervous and pumped not sure what to expect and I’m ending the day the same. We are in the little research station sharing a room with 5. Its at the north of the island, grahams harbour if you look at the map. It’s a little grungy and rustic. Beds suck, no dryer, but I kinda love it. I think I like the roommates right now! I wonder how similar me and Jordan are we just had a different upbringing. Taylor is great too she seems fun and reliable. The other two roommates idk what to think yet. I was bummed about the volleyball courts and I’m worried that we won’t have enough things to do to separate our time. I wanna look into peace corps I think it fits really well for me right now. I’m also bummed I have a little bit of service. Sure it’s slow but I wish I could just forget about my phone. Maybe I’ll leave it or turn it off on purpose. I need to remember to take more pictures and I want to move this journal to another place if I can get my app to download. Well, let’s see how it goes tomorrow! I had to come back to this journal cause I realized I didn’t complain about how much packing I did or how long and annoying the flights were but honestly, I am proud of how I handled all of that I wasn’t cranky and had a great attitude through 14 hours of travel. With only 1 hour of sleep. I hope I can keep this up and take it home with me. All good vibes

It’s still so pretty here! We haven’t done any traveling around the island yet but we found some cool cliffs and some of the class went snorkeling at the old dock. They saw 7 green turtles and collected a bunch of invertebrates like sponges, a wasp jellyfish, some cool worms and shells. I got to see the turtle from outside of the water which was awesome. A few of us went over to the cliffs and walked around and climbed them. It was so pretty, we just hung for a long time and expired.

Is it really only day 4? This was one of the busiest days. It feels like we have already been here forever. When we drove in it started to feel a tiny bit homey maybe cause I was so tired and wanted to lay in bed or maybe I really like the place. Today we expected it to rain all day but it was actually really nice out. We started with a trip to the light house and cave and then we explored town. Gustav gives us the weekend off so we didn’t have to worry about school stuff today. The lighthouse was so cool. You couldn’t quite see the whole island but it was fun exploring it and seeing it from above. The cave was a really far walk and a little small, but I haven’t been under the earth like that before and it was really cool. On the way back to grc we stopped at a nice beach then later toured some of the island after dinner. It’s really small here, and I wonder what the locals do for work cause they don’t grow any food and we haven’t been able to find any fresh fish yet. I hope we get some fresh food soon.

Today was a slow day, everyone kinda needed a break from the endless activities we have been doing so far. Me and the volleyball girls (Jenny/lorea) played volleyball in the rain, it was so fun! But later we still managed to go snorkeling! We went to the reef by the beach on the north shore. We saw rays, lots of fish, coral and some of our group saw octopus and baracudas. It was sad cause Gustav said that the reefs used to have so much more and over fishing caused a dramatic decrease even in this insanely rural area where no one fishes anyways. I helped Jordan with her blog and then we went to watch a movie in the conference room. It’s raining a lot and it isn’t supposed to stop until weds.

Waking up at 7:30 everyday for breakfast is starting to get hard. We are starting with lab and lecture and then probably collecting samples later. I’ll let know ya how it goes.

I cried during lab. Lol, I was really upset about my subleaser and worried about Home but it worked out in the end. After lunch, we went to the same spot as yesterday to snorkel but this time it was really rough and visibility was lower so it wasn’t that great. Later me and Taylor went for a run and found a nice trail I want to try again. We ate, showered and went to sleep early.

I wanna talk about some of the people on the trip. Jordan Taylor jasmine and Jennifer my roommates are still amazing we started bonding a lot and continue to hang out all day. Some of the other people I’m getting to know are Jenny lorea and gabby. Jenny and lorea are my volleyball peeps they are really cool, I want to get closer with them. And gabby is the only one doing part two of this trip with me. The rest are doing the Mexico trip. They also have Shelby in their room, she is the youngest on the trip and so adventurous. The last girls dorm has Monica Monica and Tori. Their 4th roommate, brooke, went home early from anxiety on like the first day. As for the guys of the trip, jimmy (blond) Carlos (the big brother, always askes everyone questions) and Brandon (fish specialist). There are two other groups on the grc, and archeology group and another marine group. The other marine group has a professor that has been here before and they go more places but I like Gustav so much more.

We didn’t do any field stuff today. We had lecture, lab, lecture, lab. Until 5. Gustav has a proposal that’s due tomorrow so he wanted time to work on that. Me Jennie and lorea went for a run to the same place as yesterday and they are a bit more my pace. It was fun and then late at night the group played Pictionary and scatagories. Hopefully we do more tomorrow now that Gustav has time

I woke up this morning on accident and I got to see the sunrise! I am amazed everyday how pretty everything is here. We have to walk out there some morning soon.

So we started with lecture again and then we drove the whole island!! It’s a lot bigger than I thought and we found a salt marsh. Our bananas are finally ripe enough to eat!! It tastes so good to have fresh fruit, I’ve had 5 already today.

Whoops I skipped a day and I’m writing this post late. It’s hard to keep track of days here weeks fly by and weekends don’t exist or everyday is a weekend. Yesterday we took a field lunch and snorkeled the inlet thing where the ocean meet this creek. It was cool but not as exciting as people told us it was going to be. It was just a sea grass bed.

Today we started with visiting the harbour because yesterday the class got to see dolphins out there. We saw turtles though and it was pretty cool

We only did lab work today and worked on the exam. I was exhausted all day

I got to go diving today! I used half of Gustav’s tank with jasmine and it was a really shallow reef. But I had a great time I loved being out there again.

Lecture and club med dive