A Week at FGCU!

      This week at FGCU's Vester Station marine lab is most likely going be my favorite of the entire trip (maybe with the exception of the Keys Marine Lab - I'm not quite sure yet) I never wanted to leave and I was actually a little bit sad when it was time to go (that week flew by - as every week on this trip has!!). I felt so happy the entire time we were there... I feel like I'm definitely meant to come back and spend more time here. There's so many mangrove patches and little barrier islands and gorgeous seagrass beds. Bonita Springs has so much unbelievably beautiful scenery. There's lush green foliage pretty much every where you look. I saw so much wildlife... Ospreys, snowy egrets, and dolphins were seen at nearly every location that we visited. What more could I ask for?! It was amazing being able to go out on the water every day and be outside doing field work at so may diverse locations. We would take a boat out every day and ride through the mangroves in Estero Bay to look at something new. I had never seen mangroves besides in photographs (there aren't any in Pensacola that I know about, and we didn't spend time looking at the ones in St.Petersburg). I had also never spent so much time in an estuary so I was never really able to fully appreciate them until this week. 

My favorite part of the week was when we traveled from Riverside Park to Big Pass near the outlet of Estero Bay into the gulf. We were able to get a comprehensive look at the abiotic gradients and biotic zonation as you travel from the inlet to the outlet of an estuary. That experience definitely gave me a whole new appreciation for estuaries and how all of the water systems, from small streams to the oceans, are connected. We looked at a similar pattern at UWF but I feel like this area had a bigger impact on me because I felt so connected to nature when I was there. Also, it really bothered me to see how the wealthier homeowners (which seems to be a good majority of the population in the area) completely disregard their impact on the environment. Many of them seem to have no problem destroying the coastlines or cutting away vegetation vital to water filtration or moving sea turtle nests or even leaving all of their lights on at night although they live just a few yards from a sea turtle nest.  Bonita is just so beautiful and it was sad and disgusting  to see how development is destroying the biodiversity.  Seeing people turn what once was a home for mangroves and other marine life into a hardened coastline that allows for no life to survive was sad. I would love to be able to work on a project that contributed to conserving and restoring this area. I feel like we can definitely have a positive impact and beautiful sensitive ecosystems like Estero Bay need to be protected.

Also, we made it a point to go to the beach everyday while in Bonita Springs. The beaches there are incredible! They aren't like those near UWF in Pensacola, which have powdery white sand and much less marine life, or the beaches near USFSP in St. Petersburg which were quite similar to Pensacola's beaches. These beaches were much more rich with diversity. The sand was shelly (which I actually find much more beautiful and pleasant to be on) and when we went out at night we were able to see tons of nine armed starfish and ghost crabs, which I had never seen before. I can not wait to come back for another visit here!!

Below is a picture of us testing the water quality of samples we gathered along Estero Bay in the lab and the boat we took out to through Estero Bay!