July 22nd Day 32

Today I woke up with a bit of a hangover. It wasn't major but when I found out we were going to go water sampling out in the open ocean, I wasn't exactly pleased. From the shore it looked calm as could be but as we motored out there, it got a little windy. Being on a small boat that isn't moving with swell and wind chop made the water sampling a bit difficult. I started to feel sick a few times but I was able to put it aside in my head and do the work that needed to be done. It was hard work getting the water samples when they were at around 200 feet. It also wasn't fun pulling up all that line. Once we finished at the open ocean site we went in to do a fore reef site. Once that was finished we came back and processed the water samples. I helped Jessica set up an experiment to find out the primary production (organic carbon production by phytoplankton) in water samples from the two sites. After lunch Tom, Andy, and I went out to the rapids plots to collect some more algal recruitment tiles. When we got back from that trip there wasn't a whole lot else to do for the day. With the extra time, I went to Val who is a Tahitian worker here at the station to have her call about the discount cards and if they were in at Moorea's Airport. I then finished the last portion of the dive master test and then got to call it a day. In that time I did some work on my Fulbright personal statement and also did some job hunting for when I get back to the states. For dinner tonight we had this lentil soup/stew with ham and bacon which was really good. After dinner I spoke with Erica for a short time about finalizing the trip to New Zealand and then I worked for a little while longer. Now I am going to go to bed to try to make up for the sleep I lost last night hanging out with Mathieu. Until later.