Senior Project

Today, I had to leave the island. We packed up our bags, ate our last meals, and sealed up the house for hurricane season. We had two flights eventually getting delayed in Miami thus landing in Boston around 1:30 in the morning. As you could imagine we were exhausted getting to our house in Vermont at four in the morning. I slept for a while today and eventually worked on my final paper for my senior project. Below is an image of me and my dad on the plane at one in the morning.

This was my final week in St Croix and I am very grateful to have had this opportunity. This week I learned how to finalize the process of cleaning, fragging, and moving coral from the lab into the ocean. I also learned the process of getting one of the lab's rafts out to sea to test the water and then after, to place the coral substrates on it for launch. For the most part, I enjoyed working at the lab and facility.  If I return or get involved again, I will want to be certified in order to dive and enjoy the reefs first-hand. Everyone working for the Conservancy was welcoming and the coral research is interesting and important. I was not able to dive because I'm not certified so again, that was a little disappointing.   Overall my short internship was a cool experience and while I learned a lot about the coral reefs and their challenge, I learned a tremendous amount about the island. Going into the project, I was unsure what to expect or even what I would be working on ...

 Today was my last day working at the Coral Innovation Hub in St. Croix. We finished epoxying the hurricane covers and made the final cuts and adjustments. They know have twenty-six hurricane covers made from plywood that should keep the coral safe in anything below category four or higher hurricanes. I am very grateful to be a part of this organization. They also said that if I chose to live here for a summer or an extended period of time they would gladly give me the opportunity to work for them and get a job there. I highly recommend visiting their website (below) to help with the cause. In total I completed my 75 hours. https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/caribbean/stories-in-caribbean/caribbean-a-revolution-in-coral-conservation/

 Today I got to work with the in-water field team. We launched a raft out to start testing the water of the ocean where we want to put the coral substrates before they go in and get glued to a reef. They do this so that we have an understanding of what's in the water beforehand if we ever see side effects or diseases that affect the coral. The process took a while as they had to anchor the raft out securely against a rock.  Also here is a link to the grand opening of the lab and facility to the public which happened last week: https://stcroixsource.com/2022/05/13/tnc-dedicates-coral-innovation-hub-on-st-croix/

 Today was another hot workday in the sun. We were busy making hurricane covers all day. This included cutting, fiberglass sealing, and extending plywood to cover the tanks. We ended up going to a lumber yard and picked up some half-inch plywood that we cut up for the dimensions of the tanks using a table saw. After that, we mixed the epoxy and hardener together for the formula to make a fiberglass sealer, putting this on the wood will make sure that the plywood never gets heavy and is waterproof and more resistant to winds and other materials hitting them.  I have 66 hours in total and today was my longest day by far, I worked 9 hours.

 Today we continued to work on the hurricane covers, the idea with the foam and fiberglass won't work because there's a material shortage. We then figured out a deal to make with a guy who worked at the local lumberyard, and we were able to order enough half-inch plywood to cover all of the tables and make them into hurricane covers. Also, I was in the lab earlier in the day and did all of the normal water tests.