MCC's Marine Biology Study Ablog 2019

When Aaron brought us to visit the local salt mines we came across this.  These are large puddles filled with water nor are they frozen; this is a picture of salt that has harden to the point of being ice-like. Now, contrary to the title the salt is not rock solid because if you step on it then the salt will crack, but it is still fascinating to witness the process of making either table salt or salt that is used for industrial purposes.

Right across from CEDO, I was walking on the rocky substrate which had all sorts of creatures. From orange sponges, like the one in the photo, that squishes and leaks water. Next, I found an entire colony of hermit crabs and snails. It was pretty interesting to all the creatures bundled up in small pools within the rocks. Along the way there was some bigger creatures like crabs, and one way to tell if its male is to look at the underside to see a V which means its a male. Overall, a good observational day for my first day at CEDO.

The location of the area that we stayed at during the week was at the Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans also known as CEDO along the edge of the Sea of Cortez.  Now CEDO obviously studies the fauna and environments of each ecosystem.  However, it also promotes ecotourism to help in the protection of the life that inhabits the Gulf of California.  When we first arrived an old acquaintance  of Glenn and Alex named Polona greeted and introduced us to CEDO and endemic  species that live in the Sea of Cortez such as the Totoaba fish and the marine mammal known as the Vaquita.  After a few days, the official  host of CEDO Aaron Ramiez returned from his training and proceeded to work with us throughout the trip.  Here is a photo of what the main building at CEDO looked like:

Here's a short video of my time while scuba diving at Isla de San Jorge, also known as Bird Island! It was so cool to see all the sea lions having fun playing around us. I hope you enjoy!

On Monday, we had a chance to learn about how salt production in Mexico comes to be. CEDO has a sweet friend named Daniel whose family owns an ejido, which is a plot of land given to families where they are able to cultivate it for agricultural uses. Daniel's ejido is being put to use for two types of agriculture production, and we got to visit both! The first location we stopped at was where table salt was being made. We were shown all of the processes by Daniel's friend, Fabien. He had learned most of his salt production knowledge from past experience but is still gaining new knowledge to become faster and more efficient. The table salt process is mostly a rotation between cleaning and drying the salt water through various stages. In the pictures, you can see little squares where each step is shown. Near the end of the presentation, Fabien had mentioned this project has only been running for 5 months, and they've already had about 6 tons made! I couldn't believe it! H

Started off my day with butterflies in my stomach and some fig blueberry bars too! Everyone woke up excited and nervous for the day ahead! For me I was going into it with nonstop inner-jitters because today meant that I was about to become a certified SCUBA diver for open water! We headed out from the dock and I have some pictures below to show how beautiful the water looked. We had our lovely Ericka there to help feed us and give me some encouragement before jumping in! Dr. C and Glenn both came along during the dive and it was just an overall fantastic experience. When we first jumped into the water, I felt a rush of energy just overtake me and I started breathing a little too quickly and definitely very shallow. But after a bit, I got the hang of it and started calming down. We saw lots of beautiful sea lions, they were so curious with us, I even had a couple swim past me by a few inches. During our first dive, I saw a juvenile swim across my front and it looked like she was dancing

Early morning wake up call today, we had to race to low tide at Choya Bay! Once we got there, I quickly realized I didn't wear quite enough layers. Today's excursion was to check out the muddy areas of the bay during low tide. We were mainly searching for marine epifauna, like clams, mussels, and crabs. My favorite part was seeing all of the octopus that were hidden underneath large rocks. We also got a nice little surprise from octopi living inside a clam and taking care of her egg! I also was lucky to find a Jawfish that was hiding in the sand, and she actually had all of her eggs held inside her mouth! It was amazing to see, we didn’t see any others of her kind so we brought her towards the ocean where she could have a lot more water to breath. A few people in our group were able o find sand dollars too! Later in the day we went kayaking and had lots of fun floating around in the Morau estuary. It was pretty neat to see the women-owned oyster farm that resides there as well!

These are the different types of organisms we found as we searched these beaches. This photo shows a brittle star and a sea star (sunflower). Brittle stars are the fastest sea stars! Interesting enough they can even stand up and flip themselves over!  Both this and the photo below are of a small octopus. As we were taking photos, this critter tried to blend in to its surroundings. Changing shape, form, and color to camouflage! SEA LIONS! (and Sea Puppies) They swam all around as we scuba dove and snorkeled. Even saw some fish down below but I do not have photos. This photo was taken at the Salt Mines, I found it very interesting how much life there was! Life ranging from dragonflies to donkeys. All organisms that depend on little water regions like shown here. 

Beaches that we visited!  This ranges from our first day to our end. This beach is right in front of CEDO, Center for the study of Deserts and Oceans. Our group is walking across the beach after looking at some organisms that live in this semi-rocky area. This area is very rocky and even has large boulders. Some of the boulders have algae which made it very slippery to walk on. However, because we took the risk of walking through this, we were able to see plenty of interesting creatures! This area is Cholla Bay, we actual met with another Mesa Community College Professor here, as they have a house near by. This area is more of a mud flat estuary. This is our group on the boat leaving Bird Island. The following video has Aaron, LoLo, and Paige at the front of the boat. We were looking/searching for the dolphins that someone had seen and announced. This beach is Sandy Beach, we visited this beach with CEDO Crew to do a Census of the organism t