Challenges of the Sea

By Corinne Tarantino

If I had ever thought that marine biologists have all the fun, this week sure changed my mind. The coral reefs are pretty to look at, but spending long days underwater and researching next to the coral proved to be a challenge.

            First, the clothing you wear is a little different from a normal day on the beach. Wearing sunscreen is not allowed in the water in the coral reefs, because sunscreen will bleach the coral. It would not be good as a biologist to study an area and be destroying it at the same time. Skin damage is still a concern, so long sleeves, long pants and a bandana for your head works the best. Once fully covered, swimming can be a bit of a challenge, along with putting back on wet clothes several days in a row. Chaffing is also a major concern with the wet clothing.

            After protecting yourself from the sun, you must get comfortable snorkeling. For a project to be conducted, you must be able to dive and float for extended periods of time. It was a bit of a challenge to get used to diving down and puffing the water out of the snorkel. Also, at first I struggled because my mask was filling with water. I learned that if you tighten it too much, then the mask fills, so a happy medium must be found in order to create a seal on your face. The other scary factor was floating in the same spot for a long time. Floating isn’t too hard, but often you must resist the current. This could be avoided by crossing your legs to create more resistance with the fins or in general staying still and only making smooth arm motions.

            Now, the challenges of the project. Overall, the project we conducted was very well thought out and planned in advance. This helped make the project run smoother, but there were still difficulties. First, the sites had to be marked. In order to place the flagging tape outside of the water, one partner had to swim treacherously close to fire coral (a type of coral that burns upon touch) to tie it onto the nearest mangrove (a tropical coastal tree/shrub). Meanwhile, the sites had to be marked underwater by tying flagging to a rock or dead coral and burying it next to the spot. Seagrass also had to be placed in the sand with clips. Diving down and then burying the clips with one breath while avoiding neighboring coral was quite difficult. Touching the coral can destroy the site or cut you, therefore, avoiding the coral was one of the most crucial parts to the project. At our site, the fish were surrounded by fire coral. It was like navigating through an underwater mine field, avoiding disturbing anything in the process of the experiment.

            Over the course of the past week, I experienced many challenges of marine research, but in that time, I also learned how to avoid many problems. It was a very interesting to live in wet clothes, feel the sun, feel the warm and cold currents, and conduct an experiment underwater. I have gained a new appreciation for marine biologists’ dedication to their work.