Bristol Andros Projects: Helios Lake (Part 2)

Beautiful sunrise welcomed us through the window panes (I was still sound asleep, of course), and we had to head out early!

Low-lying mist across the mangroves across the creek.

Fiona and I rushingly packed for an overnight stay at the Blue Hole for twenty-four hours sampling and profiling (or rather, be mosquitoes' dinner, supper and breakfast!).

At Helios, and from afar you can see large and grey low-lying clouds, with roaring thunders in a distance. From the anomalous wind direction, the storm was definitely headed to our direction.

And it did - the strong winds were vicious. Meanwhile, work has got to go on nevertheless despite the T-storm. Gran titration, YSI Profiling and sampling w depth. It was a risk swimming because of lightning within proximity, but I was still happy to get in the water to resume working - Lowering secchi disk (for turbidity measurement) and adjusting depth of sampling.

Thank god for Mike and George for setting up the tent for our 'work station'.

*sings Raindrop Keep Falling On My Head*

Gran Titrating in our tent-turned-outdoor-lab

The weird pink suspended layer whose
depth fluctuates at about 4-6m

The only hint of civilisation in the area.

When T-storm stopped - George went back out to
survey the remaining Banana Holes

By 6pm, the rest of the team left to continue lab work at the houseboat - leaving Fiona and I for our 24-hour duty - which means sampling the water every six hours and YSI profiling every hour.

We had leftover from last night for dinner, continued profiling. I attempted to have an hour's sleep but my poison wood allergy reacted again and this was the day before I went to the hospital to get it checked.

And did I mention how we had the most bug-infested day ever - as soon as the horseflies decided to take a break and the mosquitoes quickly take over. Just imagine hundreds of them trying to drain your blood dry! =s