MadBeach Helps Bahama Habitat
Hobbit Hovel
Today (Wednesday) was our habitat creation day. Our internet access will be down until noon tomorrow this sort of messes up a lot of people here who can’t communicate off the island.
It is much too choppy for all of us to safely work in the water today. The waves are about three feet not too far off shore and the wind is blowing in from the northwest when normally it comes from the southeast… Go figure.
Breakfast was an extraordinary affair. We either had French toast or very soft regular toast. Some of us used syrup, some used jam... it sort of depended on your point of view I guess. There was oatmeal too. Yep, that’s what they told me.
After breakfast our challenge was to create and construct reef habitat structures that people who live on or near coral reefs could make using local materials with very little money. Basically, that means scrounge what you can find, be very creative, and add concrete. I remembered the reef balls that were constructed at Madeira Beach Middle School and a couple of us tried to figure out how to make them here on San Salvador. The other groups were making imitation elkhorn coral using and old wooden box with sand for a form, cardboard, duck tape, cut up window screen, wire and quick set cement. The only money they spent was for the cement.
My group, Ms Montana, Bob “the builder”, and I went beach scrounging. We found: buoy floats – small, medium, and large – plastic bottles from three continents, soda cans, rope, rocks and sand. We carried five gallon buckets of cement mix and water from the research center down to the beach; ugh! We dug holes right into the beach sand, shaped the holes with the buoys and our hands, and set bottles and cans to leave holes in the habitat. (Bob stepped in one of the holes tripped and fell on his face in the sand. But he didn’t spill the cement! ‘Atta boy Bob! ) We then shaped and formed the cement –working against gravity and the tide- around the cans and up the side of the holes. Then just as the tide was coming in…
Wonder how they turned out?
Today (Wednesday) was our habitat creation day. Our internet access will be down until noon tomorrow this sort of messes up a lot of people here who can’t communicate off the island.
It is much too choppy for all of us to safely work in the water today. The waves are about three feet not too far off shore and the wind is blowing in from the northwest when normally it comes from the southeast… Go figure.
Breakfast was an extraordinary affair. We either had French toast or very soft regular toast. Some of us used syrup, some used jam... it sort of depended on your point of view I guess. There was oatmeal too. Yep, that’s what they told me.
After breakfast our challenge was to create and construct reef habitat structures that people who live on or near coral reefs could make using local materials with very little money. Basically, that means scrounge what you can find, be very creative, and add concrete. I remembered the reef balls that were constructed at Madeira Beach Middle School and a couple of us tried to figure out how to make them here on San Salvador. The other groups were making imitation elkhorn coral using and old wooden box with sand for a form, cardboard, duck tape, cut up window screen, wire and quick set cement. The only money they spent was for the cement.
My group, Ms Montana, Bob “the builder”, and I went beach scrounging. We found: buoy floats – small, medium, and large – plastic bottles from three continents, soda cans, rope, rocks and sand. We carried five gallon buckets of cement mix and water from the research center down to the beach; ugh! We dug holes right into the beach sand, shaped the holes with the buoys and our hands, and set bottles and cans to leave holes in the habitat. (Bob stepped in one of the holes tripped and fell on his face in the sand. But he didn’t spill the cement! ‘Atta boy Bob! ) We then shaped and formed the cement –working against gravity and the tide- around the cans and up the side of the holes. Then just as the tide was coming in…
Wonder how they turned out?
posted by MR V and the Mad Beach Manatees @ 9:29 PM
6 Comments:
Mr. V-
You found plastic bottles from THREE continents? How can you tell where they are from and how did they get there?
I am going to share with Ms. Meredith about how you are creating the reef habitat similar to our all the way in the Bahamas.
Cheers,
Ms. Gibson
“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”
--Mother Teresa
Good Morning,
That process your team is using for reef creation sounds like tons of fun, it reminds me of how bells are made. It looks like your design will have quite a bit of surface area for the corals polyps to grab a hold of. Is their a specific season when the coral are reproducing? Does it depend on the species? My class and I are looking at climates for your area and we recognize that that wind direction is unusual for this time of year, we hope that it calms for the remaining days of your trip.
-Mr. Barron MBMS
Wow it looks like you got your work cut out for ya.
Red
Braxton
Wow it looks like you got your work cut out for ya.
Red
Braxton
That sounds like a lot of work! Almost more work than you give us ! just kidding wow i hope they turned out great :)
ANGELIKA
*BLUE*
The most interesting coral for me is the Fire coral the reason why is it's not like the rest of the corals. The Fire coral is more harmful to humans because if you touch it you will get stung and there maybe side affects to this.
Ayla,
orange
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