crabs, sea cucumbers, and the occasional octopus...

Last year after I decided to change my major to biology, it didn't take long for me to question, "What was I thinking?" Well, classes like the one I'm taking now, Marine Biology, help me to remember why I chose the path that I did.

A big reason why I decided in the first place to stay for the spring term, was so that I could take this marine biology class that I am currently enrolled in. I am so glad that I did! (Plus, being in Hawaii for only 4 months turned out to not be long enough anyway...) It will definitely help me to know whether I really do want marine biology as my emphasis.

So far the class has been great, the reason being that we have amazing labs to go to each week! All of them are out in the field and we go somewhere new each week. Last week we had two labs, first at "Kaena Point" on tuesday and the other location at "Kahuku Reef" on thursday. Both were pretty similar, but it was great to spend a few hours exploring and collecting animal "specimens" from the tidepools with our nets, buckets, and jars.

Kaena Point

Me with my jar full of goodies- A sea cucumber, a few cowry shells with snails in

them, some marine plant later identified, etc.

Looking in on someone's bucket: Contains a sea urchin, convex pebble crab,

marine plants, cowry shells, and probably some hermit crabs.

The best part so far on the lab trips, was what I, myself, found at Kahuku reef....an OCTOPUS! Can you believe it? I hardly could myself. When I poked at the portion of its leg sticking out from under a small coral shelf, I thought it was just a crab or a shell, but once it moved and I looked closer, I could see its succors! After that some girls and I were determined to get him out, but after harrassing it for a while, we were unsuccessful. I then told a guy by the name of Adam about it, so then he took a turn at irritating the poor animal, and eventually he got the octopus mad enough to start inking like crazy and latching on to the stick that Adam was using to feel around under the coral that the octopus was at, and eventually he got him into a pucket where we kept him for a little while so that we could "Oo" and "ahh" at him, then later released him back to where we found him. A little bit of this adventure I caught on video:

* for some reason the video is unable to load, I'll work on that...

(No animals were harmed in the making of this video...)

And here's a few pictures of him in the bucket:

What a great way to start a class! I'm excited for the several more labs to come. The lab tomorrow includes rafting on a river (don't worry mom and glenna, its not even close to white-water rafting), and later labs that require snorkeling... :)