Last week we learned a fieldwork technique called manta towing. It could also
be called power snorkeling. Wearing snorkel gear, you get towed behind a
boat at a speed of about four knots. You hold on to a board which you can
angle up or down. When you angle the board down you can go underwater,
and when you need to take a breath again you angle the board up and return to
the surface. It feels like you are moving very fast underwater. Some of us have
described manta towing as "water-skiing on your face".
We have a single and a double manta board. We used the double manta board
last week. As my roommate Sylvia and I were manta boarding together, a
Great Barracuda swam along curiously beside us. We also saw some Spotted
Eagle Rays, but they were more shy and kept their distance.
A group of six students will be working on a directed research project with
Drs. Phil and Julia Davies involving manta towing. They are going to test the
technique as a method of conch population assessment. This means that
students will have to count the number of shells they see as they are being
towed over an area. Hopefully the rest of us will have another chance to manta
tow even though we'll be working on other projects!
First SCUBA Dive
Heather Ludemann
Yesterday I went on my first SCUBA dive since I've been in the Caribbean,
and it was amazing. First, we all made sure we had a buddy before we got in
the water. When you're in the water you stay close to your buddy at all times
for safety. We all dove down to nearly fifty feet underwater and stayed there
for a half-hour. We saw many different kinds of fish and coral underwater, but
the coolest part of the dive was when we saw an airplane that had crashed into
the ocean and sunk. The front and back of the plane were gone so all that was
left was the cabin and wings. It must have been a big plane because the wings
were very long and we could swim through the middle of the plane. The plane
must have been underwater for a long time because there was a lot of coral
growing on the wings, and when you looked through the body of the plane
there were fish swimming where the people used to sit!
