this past week

ok so. this past week i took 3 tests. and i think i did fairly well on all of them. the material is interesting and the tests not too hard so im confident i did well. yeah!!

lets see
Monday: we kayaked in the morning. same old. and in the afternoon for marine ecology we went to Pigeon Cay(pronounced Key) and snorkeled around the Cay. it was really cool. the teacher brought some tubs and collected some hard red algae. we broke it apart to see what we could find. we found so many little critters living in them. some of the more interesting ones are crabs, a baby octopus(which i got to hold!), a baby morae eel(like the ones in the little mermaid), blunt spined brittle stars, some worms. it was quite the find. it was so cool to see that so much lives in such a little space! i also ate a piece of fuzzy chiton. a prehistoric looking creature that lives on the limestone in and out of h2o. you have to pry them off the stone and eat only the pink part. it was leathery. but not a horibble taste. that was monday

tuesday we had geology in the am and we went to Morgans Bluff which is 65 ft above sea level. it is the highest point on the island according to some. others think that there is one other higher spot but what eve. that was fun. we also went and looked at a petrified reef. it kinda just looked like a bunch of rock but once you look closer you can see coral that has been petrified. its pretty cool. lots of conch shells. our ecology teach was going to take us to some tide pools in the area since we were already 45 min away from the field station but the weather was looking sketchy so we just came back to the station and studied for the test. that was tuesday

wednesday we had geology in the am again. we did a sand lab. since we only had one working telescope and 3 groups we studied for the ecology test that was later in the day. so in the pm we took the test and i did well on it. there was a photo id and a written portion. after that we presented our made up invertabates. very interesting to see what some people came up with!!! after that we went to some tide pools that were close. that was all fine and dandy until Amanda S. yelled for everyone to come over to her. she had spotted an octopus!! Dennis and Shay got down and Dennis picked the octopus up! it was so cool. as soon as Dennis had it in his hands it changed to the color of his skin. wicked awesome. so we played pass the octopus and i got to hold it!!! it felt so weird. all the suction cups. when passing it you could hear the suction being release! it was so cool! Shay even put it on his shaved head! got a video of that! hopefully i can get some pics on here sometime. probably not for another week tho. that was wednesday!

thursday we had our kayak excursion! that was fun. we kayaked 2 miles to Saddle Back Cay with a couple rest stops on the way. once we got there we relaxed for a bit while the food was brought out to us for lunch. then more relaxing and laying out and reading. after about an hour or so of that it was time for class again. since i already knew how to roll my kayak, Kayak Bob asked me to help demonstrate the process of rolling. i said yes of course and we got things under way. now constantly rolling in freshh2o is TOTALLY different the constantly rolling in seah2o. it burns after time 2. but its all good. i managed. lots of snotting tho. eh h2o will do that to a person. :] when Kayak Bob started individual teaching i went and snorkeled around. i found a giant hermit crab and believe me this thing was bigger then my fist. i also so an echinaster brown spined sea star, cushin sea stars(alot of them) ummm some christmas tree hydroids(littleish white tree looking things) west indian sea eggs and probably someother stuff that i forget about. i also saw a sting ray as we paddled back to the station. that was thursday

friday we had sailing terminology in the morning. eh kinda boring learning that stuff in a class room but helpful i guess to get somewhat of an understanding before hitting the sea for a week!! which i might add is next week! i will be on a sail boat from this evening to next sat!!! any way in the after noon we had our first botany class. let me tell you with Marielle it is never a boring class. she is very animated, and i emphisize animated, about her subject. but it helps to keep attention. the name of the game for botany is plants just want to MAKE BABIES!!! seriously that was the first thing she said. welp oh and after dinner we had a geology test. not too bad i was a little worried but it wasn't as bad as i thought. i played a mind game with some of the people while we were waiting for the test. its called who has the ball. its a fun one. :] that was friday

saturday(today!) well we had our kayaking test this morning at 8. bleh right after breakfast. it went well tho. not as bad as i thought it would be. i think by making myself think that a test is going to be super hard i study better and harder for it. well it works!! i did well on it. we were suppose to be learning how to wind surf this morning but the teacher hasn't shown up yet so eveyone is just chilling. im writing this and that is that. as soon as dinner is over everyone who is going on the sailing trip next week will go down to fresh creek and enjoy the night life. then spend the night on the boat. we will leave really early tomorrow morning so we can hopefully make it to some islands that are 10 hours away. the name is......the Exumas. humm that doesn't look right but we googled it so i guess it is! hope fully the weather holds true and we can make it out there. its suppose to be quite beautiful. good snorkeling. well that is prett much it. i will keep a journal on what happens on the sail boat! im not going to take my camera for fear of somehting happening to it plus i still need to take the pics off and put them on a computer. all in good time. that is saturday

oh i also read the book Dune. wow good book. i just couldn't put it down! very interesting world. i can't wait to read the rest of the series.

well i hope everyone has a wonderful week!!
love love love
Malia