Day....what day is it?

It's day 4, I think, and already I'm dropping the ball on the blogging. Sigh. This happens every time I'm in the field and promise to keep a blog (which I'm sure only my dad reads), but it's so. so. exhausting. Por exemple, today was rise and shine at 7 am. Eat a quick breakfast, pack dive gear and confirm boat ops for an 8:30 am departure. Scope a DIDSON site or two and screw around with the SIMRAD (Split-beam sonar, much like a fish-finder) until 1:00 pm. Break for a quick lunch, then DIDSON programming and prep, dive prep, etc for round two. Pack the boat, leave at 4:00 pm. Arrive on pre-determined site, deploy the DIDSON, run SIMRAD transect lines, and then anchor and let the DIDSON run while the divers observe, until it's pulled up around 7:30 PM. Arrive back at base, unpack, clean up, charge batteries, download data, debrief. It is now 11:30 PM.

Anyways, a little more about the DIDSON:
We got data! Night before last. We went to Pennecamp state park and deployed the DIDSON in a mangrove channel near shore. We got some stellar footage of common snook chasing striped mullet up and down the channel, as well as what we think is a bonnethead shark (judging by the shape, size, movement, and the way the fish inspects the sonar-- sharks can detect the electromagnetic signals easily). I also got some water time in yesterday. I can't dive, but we scoped out some shallow reefs with snorkel gear. Visibility was fairly low, which lead to a serious "oh shit" moment with a goliath grouper (4-6 foot grouper, not particularly aggressive but not exactly wary either). It was the highlight of my trip! Today, however, despite the deploying of the DIDSON in full autonomous mode (logging data to a memory card and running off a battery pack) and all systems running fairly smoothly, we got rather crappy footage. The sand ripples in the sand halo surrounding the reef created major background noise, so tomorrow morning is key for zoning in on the right angle to position the lense to still capture the bottom, but avoid this noise. We noticed the same problem with the sea grass beds at Pennecamp.

I feel like I have a lot to say about the purpose of this mission, but I'm too freaking tired to say it now. Tomorrow will be a slight bit more leisurely, so I'll write more then.