- We partnered with Kelvin Guerrero to visit El Parque Nacional del Este's mangrove flats, and to test-drive the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) we constructed with the support of the Shedd Underwater Robotics Club and the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) Center.
- We visited the village of Mano Juan on Isla Saona; we spent some time at the schoolhouse there, talking with the students about coral reefs and reef conservation, and we also had the opportunity to see first-hand the sea turtle conservation project underway on Isla Saona (efforts there have tripled Hawksbill Turtle hatchlings' survival rates).
- We dove several times off the coast of Bayahibe, with the gracious support of Coral Point Diving. There, our team members developed their diving skills and earned new levels of PADI certification. We collected water quality data for and conducted a Reef Check survey on shallow coral reef habitat near the Dominicus Beach resort, using the ROV's camera setup to observe coral cover along the transect line.
- We dove in Parque Nacional Submarino La Caleta, the central focus of Reef Check Dominican Republic's research and restoration efforts, where we caught lionfish and dissected them using a dissection protocol created by Drs. Stephanie Green and James Morris that allows for collection of key data on trophic relationships and populations structure through measurement of size, sexual maturity, stomach content, and sagittal otolith accumulation.
Author: Matthew