We were not left, however, with nothing to do.
Perhaps you don't know that the sea, besides housing beautiful coral reefs and fish, is also covered with lots and lots of sediment. And by sediment I mostly mean mud. Though there is also some sand as well as the occasional little bits of shells, star fish, brittle stars, worms, and other creepy crawly things. And so, for several weeks, my friends and I got the pleasure of yanking up buckets and buckets of this stuff from the sea floor and then sifting through it for goodies. We would then place our findings into buckets with preservatives to later be sorted through by unfortunate graduate students in days and months and years to come. And while I will admit that this was not the best of jobs that I have ever had, we did make it fun. Thanks to our mini-boom box (Bose, you rock my world), sun-enduced delirium, dead fish down the pants tricks, and general acknowledgement of the ridiculosity of our situation, sifting through sediment became our favorite pastime.
photos and videos in this post come from Lu Sun, Remy, Alex, and me. Thanks guys!
