We found out our DRs yesterday, I'm working with AJ on a project that looks at the designation of parts of Isla Magdalena as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). The fishing cooperative got together and decided that they've overfished the area and want to close certain portions to allow it to recover. This specific sub-project would look at how the cooperative works with NGOs and government agencies to create the MPA. The other project of AJ's is looking at "Surfonomics," or the economic and cultural effects of surfing tourism on communities. There's apparently a lot of really good surfing in Baja, and fairly close to us. I'll find out soon, since some of us are spending a good amount of our break in Todos Santos at a surf hotel.

There was a lot of anxiety about the DRs, everyone got at least their 2nd choice, but some people really had their hearts set on a certain project and were pretty upset when they didn't. It's funny, I would have been equally happy with any of the professors, but now I'm really really glad that I got AJs.

The whole day was pretty much filled with DR stuff. AJ met with each subgroup (mine has Lindsey and Bailey in it) to discuss what to look at, then we spent the rest of the day doing literature searches. I wish I was back on the Pitt network so I was permanently logged in to all the databases. It's a real pain in the butt to have to try to remote log in to either Boston Univ (SFS's home institution) or Pitt before accessing anything. I'm really sick of looking at papers though.


Today we had another scallop field exercise, where we threw PVC squares into the water and snorkeled to see if there were any scallops in the quadrant. My group didn't find any, again. The other group in our boat found 2, but only brought one back because the other was too small to keep. Once we got back Vero showed us how to measure and weigh all the parts. It's crazy how little of the animal we eat, maybe a tenth of it's weight, and the rest generally gets thrown out.

There was a little unrest as far as the earthquake and tsunami went, but Gustavo made sure to keep updating us. Apparently Cabo San Lucas, which is more exposed than we are, only got waves a foot taller than usual. We haven't experienced anything and aren't expected. Gustavo said that if they did predict anything for this area we'd be driven inland to Ciudad Constitucion, about an hour away. We took some time out of one of our DR classes trying to watch the tsunami live via the internet, but as anyone else who watched it knows, it was less than exciting and we eventually gave up.