Bahamas Field Study Blog

Today, as per usual we woke up at 0700, ready for a filling breakfast of scrambled eggs, grits, bagels with cream cheese, and of course the delicious orange juice. This breakfast was especially important today as we had our first day where we would not be returning to the Gerace Research Center for lunch — instead we would be in the field all day with a packed lunch, which, as you can guess, entitled a long day. After breakfast, we returned to our rooms to pack what we needed for the day and cover ourselves in sunscreen. Then at 0900, we loaded into the truck and began the lengthy and extremely bumpy drive to Pigeon Creek to explore the estuary and mangroves.

On the way there we were all speculating what the estuary was going to be like, and we all assumed we were going to the crystal-clear water we saw on the way around the island during one of our first days here. But when we arrived at our swimming entrance, we were very wrong. The water was pretty murky and there was a very strong current since we near the mouth were the ocean meets the estuary. Due to the lack of vision in the water, everyone was very nervous, and it didn’t help when the question about saltwater crocodiles and snakes was asked — luckily neither live here — so we were good. As we explored the edges of the mangroves we saw a lot of fish in the intermediate state of their life, but we still couldn’t see anything as we crossed into the middle of the estuary. On the way in, we had to swim through the part where the ocean met the estuary, and we were met with some very scary surprises. A Large Southern Stingray emerged from the depths and swam extremely closely underneath us, which was a little too close for all our comforts. Not even 5 minutes later, the largest barracuda seen on the trip got within feet of a lot of us, all at different times and it is extremely safe to say, we were happy to be out of the water. Once out of the water, we carefully walked along the edge of someone’s vacation home to return to the truck where we started our once again very bumpy ride to our next site.

We assumed our next site, the Grotto, to be another snorkel site to identify different fish, plants, and corals (we were wrong again). When we arrived, we carried our coolers filled with water, Kool-Aid, and most importantly: bread, cold cuts, cheese, condiments, peanut butter, jelly, and some fresh fruits, as we were all starving. After a field lunch where we carefully made sandwiches making sure not to litter anything, we re-applied sunscreen and prepared for another snorkel trip when we blissfully found out we would have a relaxing afternoon of sun-bathing, reading, some swimming, and an intense game of jackpot, where even JDub joined in on the fun. Most of the afternoon was spent at the Grotto, and by the time we got back to the field station later in the day, we were all tired from spending so much time in the sun.

Once, we all regrouped after washing our gear and showering for dinner, we looked around and saw that every single one of us was extremely sunburnt. Then at the lab we all basked in the air conditioning and passed around our giant tub of aloe as we listened to music and worked on friendship bracelets. Once KR, JDub, and Dr. Phillips arrived for our evening class, we all settled down and listened to a presentation given by two fellow students on Snapshot Shallows. The sun then began to set right before lecture was about to begin for the night, so we stepped outside, took in the Bahamian sunset, then learned all about reef ecology from JDub in our last lecture of the trip . It ended up being one of our most interactive lectures yet because we were all taken aback by how many factors are working against the coral, and how scientists are working to combat the challenges they are facing. To cheer us up from this fact though, KR pulled a DVD player along with a bunch of DVDs for us out of a bag for us to use for movie nights. The movie of choice ended up being The Incredibles and we watched it as we all continued to work on friendship bracelets and began to wind down for the night when half way through the movie the island lost power so we all had to go to sleep without our fans (it was hot).

-Caroline Burns '27, Connor Blake '25, Wyatt Poling '26