Life at the Island School just slowed down dramatically, and I’m not sure whether I like it or not. With half the class gone, our community is so much smaller and quieter. I really miss all the energy created by having our whole community around. On the upside though, I will definitely get to know this group of 24 students a lot better in the next 3 weeks. I like that for Kayak rotations, the faculty separate us from groups that have already formed, in order to push our limits and force us to branch out. It allows us to become close to a variety of different people and tightens the community as a whole.

Yesterday, we spent the entire morning in my favorite class: Research. For Shark Physiology, we went out to the wall and laid out a longline. This week is going to be very fishing-intensive since we need a lot more actual data. In the past, we have been really focused on understanding the complexities behind our project. After the past couple of intense weeks though, I think we have a pretty robust understanding of physiology and the convoluted effects of stress. When laying out a longline, we have to first set up our gangions (each with a circle hook, accelerometer, hook timer, and GoPro video camera). After, we bait the hooks with pieces of bloody fish. Before sharks, I had never touched a fish before in my life (I’m also a vegetarian), now, I’m used to having fish blood and guts all over me. Unfortunately, yesterday, no sharks bit our line. On the bright side, we got practice laying out a longline with less people since half our class was gone. The incredible graphic above, which demonstrates the set-up, was designed by the very talented Read Frost who is a student on the shark team with me.