After a great deal of hard work, and more than our fair share of “dumb jar” moments, all teams finished recording their sections of the Brick Site. After surfacing, we were treated with a quick boat trip to Cahuita Point to mark the end of site recording. Here we ate coconuts and checked out some of the local wildlife, including the yellow eyelash viper and a Capuchin monkey. However, this unfortunately means that tomorrow will be our last day of diving. It will be a site clean up day, where we will be removing the baseline and buoys from both the Brick and the Cannon Sites. After this step is finished, our focus will become solely post-processing and small boat recording.
Moving into the second half of the day, a group of 7 of us were sent into the National Park in order to take GPS datam points along the shoreline. These points will be used to ensure that the GPS datam points taken at the Brick and Cannon Sites are accurate. The park begins to ask people to leave at 16:00 and, as it was already 14:00, we decided that the best way to finish the task would be take the faster path through the jungle and then return on the beach. This allowed us get the work done, while being able to experience the National Park. Along the way we saw howler monkeys, several species of snakes, and, of course, a plethora of different insects. As the project comes to a close, I can say I will not miss the local insect population.
– Mitch