June 2, 2015

8:30pm - Had a half good and a half bad day of fieldwork today. Today was overcast and cooler so only a couple turtles were basking. Also it rained for four hours along our approximately five mile paddle. We did get another yearling Suwannee cooter in hand which was great. I did not post any updates today due to my water proof phone case leaking. My iPhone is now powered off and in deep dry mode in a bag of rice and silica gel packs! All photos and blog posts from this trip were from this phone. I am constantly amazed at the technological advances with these intricate devices (especially the cameras), but I sure wish they had better moisture protection.

Since the phone is out of service, unfortunately so are my blog posts from the field. Perhaps I may attempt to power it on tomorrow night and cross my fingers.

The weather this afternoon was sub-optimal and a check of the forecast did not look good for continuing. My colleague George will have to finish the trip later this summer with volunteer help. In the mean time we are going to perform rapid surveys on four river for which the Suwanne cooter is not known from, but could very well be present.

8:30am - After a strong thunderstorm and heavy rains we awoke to see the river level rose about 6-8 inches. The water crept close to our tents.

Walking the small creek adjacent to our camp site I came accross one of my favorite fish species, the hogchoker. This fish is a small species of sole that lives in freshwater but travels to the Gulf of Mexico to spawn.