July 24th Day 34

Today we started up by finishing the water sampling. Since we had already sampled offshore and the fore reef, we sampled some sites inside Cook's Bay. It was much easier than working out at sea like we had previously. The biggest waves that we encountered were from boat wake which was very nice. Once we got done, Keith and I started the water filtration. It was interesting doing the filtering because I have done it previously in Santa Barbara with the SBC-LTER but it has been a couple years now since I had last done it and it definitely took me back. After we finished that I did a dive on Gump Reef with Steph which was cool since I hadn't done it in a while. I ended up getting some good pictures since I didn't have to count the recruits on the anemones myself. Once we got back, we did some work on dive master skills and I got most of mine done which was nice. We had to do some exercises where we left all of our gear at the bottom and then recover it while still ascending safely to the surface. Breathing compressed air prevents you from ascending fast because if you do you can get the bends which is really bad. The tasks were easy though and we were able to finish them without any real issue. After that we got ready to go up to Neil's bungalow on top of the hill. He lives in the original bungalow where Mr. Gump lived before he donated all his property to research and UC Berkeley. It was cool to go up there and see. I had never seen this man Neil before so I actually have no idea what he actually does here while he is on station. The gathering was a good time. I sat down to Russ who was a little tipsy and listened to some of his stories. I managed to hear how him and Sally got married on a bet which was a longer story than could be told in a blog. Nonetheless it was a great story which I made sure I heard most of it. Just after, Mosen and I went to go get the food at the snack shack . We got the lemon chicken and chow mien which are signature dishes there. Our cooking group came down from Neil's bungalow to eat and now they are downstairs listening to music. I think I'm going to join them before I go to bed. Until later.