As you may have guessed from the previous posts about waterspouts and the dolphin, we’ve been on the Gulf coast for the last few days. Specifically, we were visiting the Gulf Coast Research Lab‘s Marine Education Center for two days for our end-of-year trip.
It was excellent. The weather was perfect; sunny with lots of cumuliform clouds for shade but little rain. However, the what really made the trip work was that we had a good, interesting, and varied program, directed by an excellent instructor, Stephanie T..
For reference (to link all posts about the Coastal Science Camp):
- On the first morning, we started off dip net sampling in an estuary, then did some sub-surface collection while watching waterspouts, and finally trying our hands at seine netting before walking back to the research lab, and observing longshore drift, along the artificial beach.
- After lunch, we spent some time in their classroom identifying organisms we’d collected in the morning, dissecting squid, and having an overview of the geography of the region.
- On the second morning, we took a pontoon out to one of the close islands (Deer Island) to collect garbage and observe the beach biota and sandbar geomorphology. On our way back a dolphin decided to surf in the wake of our vessel.
- We spent the last afternoon fishing.
View Coastal Sciences Camp, Gulf Coast Research Lab in a larger map