i'll just finish up a little on the Galapagos, but I'll make it shorter and sweeter. After our 8 day cruise we returned to San Cristobal and had to do mini group projects much like we did in the rainforest. I worked with my friends Jean and Dana. We studied schooling behavior over sandy and rocky substrate. We hypothesized that there would be more schools over sandy substrate because it is harder to find food there (less niches because lots of stuff can grow in rocks) and also because there are fewer places to hide over sandy substrate. We did it at two different beaches and there was a signficant different at one beach, but not the other. But we did find a lot of other significant differences like size of schools, and were they were located in the water column . there were bigger schools over sandy and were more often found on the surface (plankton?)
Then we had a test. It was really hard. but it was fun snorkeling for the field exam. My prof kicked me during the exam (on accident when diving down) and there were people wearing thong bikinis on the beach as well and those two things don't happen too often during an exam .
for our fun day we went to isla lobo and leon dormiendo/kicker rock. and isla lobo there were tonssssssssssssss of baby sea lions. it is like a little nursery for them while mama goes and hunts. We got to play with the sea lions which was one of the happiest things in the world. They would twist and twirl around you. Then they would swim rigth at your face and you would be worried they were going to collide into you and then they would take off in another direction. It was soooo cute. I loved every second of it. Then after playing for over an hour we went off to kicker rock. This snorkeling site was really deep so there wasn't too many cool fish stuff, but we did see some sharks and rays. but the walls of the huge rock were magnificent! The walls were covered in christmas tree worms, star fish, sea fans, barnacles and it was every color you could imagine.
also I'm going to take a paragraph or two to rewiiiind back to one of the days on Santa Cruz. Before we got on the boat for santa cruz we went to a farm to look at tortoises and on this da there happened to be a lot of rain. And for once I am not exaddrating ;) . So we took a bus to the farm and it parked while we scurried off to chase some tortoises. We walked adn walked in the rain and then there was more rain and then there were some tortoises. On the way back we had to cross some....streams...no not streams....rivers...no not rivers....more like rapids. Then finally we arrived at the bus..but before arriving to the bus there was a "rapid" right behind it. The bus driver also seemed a little worried...peculiar.... So once we got closer we also noticed there was another raging river in front of us. We were stuck. So while everyone was franticially figuring what to do we were sitting inside dying of hungery (aka really hungry not really dying.) Then Colleen and I decided we were hungry and bored and wanting a good photo opportunity. So we grabbed our snorkel gear and headed off the bus, on the way we came across our professor Cath. Who said we were going to cross the river one by one, and then suitcase by suitcase and that it was getting dark so there was no time to DICK AROUND. let me remind you at this moment I was wearing a mask and a snorkel........but no worries this did not detriment Colleen and I from our wonderful photo op. Then we did exactly what Cath said and crossed the raging rapids one by one and bag by bag. So once we and the bags were across we loaded them up into a gravel truck on the opposite side and then we all hoped in. So all 15 of us are on top of this huge gravel truck filled with gravel and we started bacing up. yup, we were going to back the 15 min drive out of there. Well maybe 3 min into backing up we hear a popping noise and the truck stops. We blew a tire. So we unloaded ourselves. and the bags. The guide said it was a fifteen min walk. We all decided that is a short little jaunt so we grabbed our bags (that were filled with clothes, sun block, snorkel gear to last a month) and started walking up the road. everything this day seem to be "15" min. but this walk was more like over an hour. We were hungry, tired, andddddd a little crabby at this point. To top it off my boats had worn away the skin on my calfs leaving bloody strips. (and I still have marks from them!)
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