Meet Fredrick

When we woke up this morning, we were expecting to spend the day learning about corals. Today was going to be a pretty chill day of snorkeling and then we would have time to work on our presentations. Unfortunately, at breakfast our professor confessed that there were actually a few more hermit crab experiments that we would have to do. We weren’t exactly excited about this prospect, but we know that it was necessary. We had the chance to snorkel around the corals in the morning. We went out with a woman who has been studying corals for many years while our professor went to collect more hermit crabs. She taught us about all the different types of corals you could find in this area and every time we spotted something unusual, she was able to explain exactly what it was. We learned so much in such a short time and we had a blast!

Intense coral discussion

After lunch, we set up the crab experiment again and got to work. It took the rest of the day. We observed them and then had to take them all out of their shells again and weigh them.

While I was not paying attention, our professor wanted to take down our experimental apparatus, so he climbed up on a table. We watched in horror as the table started to wobble and in an instant, he had fallen to the ground. At first, I thought he had broken his hip. That would have been terrible because the medical facilities here are non-existent. He grabbed his wrist instead and was pretty sure he sprained it. He planned to get it checked out when we arrived in Panama City tomorrow. For now, we supported his wrist between two clipboards and secured everything together with duct tape. Not exactly the best method, but we did what we could.

As we continued to work on our hermit crab data late into the night, some of us went a little crazy. We found a gigantic frog and named him Fredrick. I thought he was great, but from his expression, the feeling wasn't mutual.

P.S. Don't tell Nick :)