Today was our last day of work on the sites. We had to clean up the cannon site and take final GPS points and, of course, it was raining. We woke up, walked to pick up our tanks, and met the boats in a complete downpour. After having two wonderful weeks of great weather, the last day was very wet. Dr. Harris joked that Costa Rica was crying for us because this is our last day on site.
While the rain did not present a huge problem for walking in scuba gear (besides making everything soaking wet), it did cause problems for diving. The waves rolling in were huge, providing an almost roller coaster like experience on our way to the cannon site. The rain obviously does not bode well for technology either. Katie and I were not diving today, but we snorkeled around and took final GPS readings on the 13 cannon and two anchors. As the conditions were rainy and surgey, the GPS was put into a plastic bag to keep it as dry as we could. I had to hang on to a lifejacket to keep it completely out of the water.
The site layout made GPSing the cannons easier, because the swells were smaller in that area and we could easily determine where the divers were and what buoys they were pulling on. These pulls were our signal to take up specific buoys. GPSing the anchors was way more complicated. The anchors are located closer to shore and just happened to line up with the wave breaks. There was a lot more push and pull which made it hard to float on a lifejacket and keep the technology out of the water. As soon as we got the two readings, I immediately swam back to protect the technology (and got a great leg work out because of the distance to the boats and the waves). Overall, it was a very different experience than what we have had and clearly shows that Costa Rica was conspiring to keep us working to expand its history.
-Allyson