Mission Journal 10 — Deron Burkepile: Mission Day 6: Saturday, November 13th, 2004
Well, I spent the day counting. Counting seaweeds. One, two, three…wait what number was I on. One, two, three… I was busy gathering our initial data from inside the cages before we start putting fishes in them tomorrow morning. It’s a fun task for a while, looking at all the seaweeds, seeing which species are there, how much of this one and that. I end up seeing things I wouldn’t normally see if I just gave the cage a quick once over. But when you count seaweeds you don’t move much, and when you do it for five straight hours you tend to get cold. So, I was breaking up the monotony, and the shivering, by swimming as fast as I could between cages, swimming in place while holding onto a cage, underwater jumping jacks, basically whatever I could to stay warm. Didn’t work. Got cold anyway, but we got the data and that’s what matters at this point.
While I was gathering data, I got to interact with some of the smaller creatures of the reef that we take for grant most of the time. I spent several minutes watching a 3 inch mantis shrimp run back and forth between its several holes in the reef. Mantis shrimp have retractable claws that they carry like a prize fighter just under their chins. They use these claws to hunt their prey or ward off intruders that come into their territory. If their prey gets too close or you invade their space, they give you a quick jab with their claws that sounds like a piece of popcorn popping. It doesn’t really hurt unless the shrimp is really big in which case it can give you a nasty cut. But it will surprise you if you put your finger in a hole and a mantis shrimp happens to be there. So I entertained myself for several minutes by putting the pencil I was using to take data with inside the mantis shrimp’s territory. It would come scurrying out and give the pencil a quick right jab and then scurry back into its hole then repeat the process every time I moved the pencil around. A very entertaining way to take a break between counting and get my mind off the cold.