We had a couple of DR days last week, where my group worked on our interviews for the coop members and had Jose help us translate them into English. Then we went out and talked to two guys from the coop, one an average member on the island and the other the coop president's secretary in Puerto San Carlos. We've realized that the coop isn't as far along in their planning for the Marine Protected Area (MPA) as we thought. An MPA is an area that is designated as a no-fishing zone, sometimes for all types of fish, sometimes for only a few. They can be voluntary, cooperative-driven or they can be government recognized and enforced. My project is looking at how the coop is going to coordinate making it, if they're going to work with different NGOs like ReefCheck or COBI (Comunidad y Biodiversidad), if they're interested in making it government recognized, how they're going to handle surveillance, etc. Based on the conversation with the president's secretary, they're still in the early planning stages.

Yesterday was pretty cool, we had a field exercise/lecture on mangroves. The group split into two and my group went out kayaking for a couple hours to look at the mangroves from the water (in an estuary). Mangroves look like this (only not as high in our area). They're really crucial to ecosystem function because they filter the seawater, prevent erosion, and act as a nursery for a lot of marine fish and shellfish. Kayaking is fun, but I haven't quite gotten my stroke right. Paddling in a kayak is different from a canoe, you shouldn't be pulling the paddle at all, but instead pushing with your opposite arm. Since I wasn't really doing this, my shoulder started to get really tired, and the trip back kind of sucked. After kayaking we ate lunch and went with Gustavo to catalogue a mangrove experiment they're doing. A few years ago the thermoelectric plant had to dig a belt through a mangrove forest to put in a pipeline, and SFS is looking to see how the mangrove fills back in. To do that they set up some permanent quadrants and are asessing where the mangroves return to first.

Last night we all went into town for the whale festival. It's really just an excuse to have a carnival and crown a "whale queen", what a great title! SFS had a tent and we painted faces for all the kids. Apparently I'm better at drawing cartoon whales than I expected. Afterwards we had some free time to roam around and I ended up getting a pina colada, a ring made out of a shell, and a bracelet. We're going back tonight and I'm considering getting pink extensions in my hair, the interns and Laura got some last night. I also had some awesome tacos that had cactus in them, it looked like a slice of green pepper but it tasted really sweet and was awesome combined with everything else.

We're supposed to go back to the festival tonight for more facepainting, but it started raining a few minutes ago, so I'm not sure what happens now. In any case I have a ton of papers and projects due next week, and tests the week after that. I'd like to go back to the festival, but at least I'd maybe get something done if we didn't go.