Working on the Atoll

Things are really, really busy here right now. Shortly after I arrived, the person that was training me, Kathy, got really sick. She only had a couple of days to fill me in on how they were conducting reef fish surveys along with how to take care of all of the reports, accounting, and random duties (e.g., making sure that we have enough food, getting broken furniture fixed, determining fuel expenses, etc.) before she had to be taken to the hospital in the mainland. Kathy ended up taking a boat to the mainland and is in the hospital. She was going septic. It's very fortunate that she got out when she did! She's been on IV antibiotics for days. It sounds like she's coming around now. We hope to get her on a flight to Miami tomorrow. I'm trying to figure it all out. I actually go to Belize City in the morning to pick up more people.

I'm trying to include pictures when I can. Here's one looking off of my front porch (I'm moving soon to a different room that won't be quite so scenic). Here's the group heading out to do a practice survey.

The picture above is an island near a place called Calabash. There is a group on the island in the picture studying the mangrove seedlings nearby. We plan to do out transect lines (fish surveys) near this spot.

The underwater pics that I've been taking so far are mostly for training purposes, so they aren't terribly pretty. However, I did dive down real quick to snap this picture of an anemone yesterday. I sure like anemones.