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This week in patch reefs research we began our long research block with a pirate march to one of Matt’s pirate ballads named “Haul on the Bowline.” Although we are still unsure of his reasoning for having such a song in his iTunes library, we all participated in marching around the class room to get in the right spirits to go explore more patch reefs and continue our data collection. Ironically enough, the song set the tone for the entire research class in that it was the first time that all of our patch reef researchers contributed to putting the anchor in and out of the water and handling other tasks associated with boat care, all essentially ‘hauling on the bowline’ to help out the group. With this new sense of complete participation coming from all members of the group we can now become more efficient during our research blocks and work as a team. While in the field, we continued to record our observations of important species like Nassau grouper and the invasive Red lionfish. Although we are all going to be split up for the next couple weeks due to our kayak trips, when we are reunited in 3 weeks we will be coming back to an entertaining, efficient group in which everyone can rely on each other to do all tasks.

-Katie Johnson