Shane Nuara

I’m finally home and I honestly feel great to be here! I’ve never missed my bed so much then when I took my first jump on it after a 2 and a half weeks! I learned so much while I was abroad and want to thank SEBS for the opportunity of a lifetime to help pursue a career in marine biology! I also want to thank CCMI and all the staff that guided and helped me along the way to better my education of conserving our reefs and oceans! I have enjoyed my time working with the CCMI staff and Rutgers interns these past few weeks and I couldn’t have picked a better group to be with! The little Caymans will always have a place in my heart especially all the awesome people that live there! After this trip, I have decided to devote my full time to marine biology and hope to one day get a chance to work on projects of my own in a field that I am so lucky to enjoy! I hope whoever is reading my blogs have enjoyed my little snippets of my experiences! A little something to remember; keep reaching for the stars because if you put your mind to it and work for it then anything is possible!!!(That log was actually heavy!) 🙂

8/10/16- The evening has come here at Little Cayman. We have survived 2.5 weeks of sweat, awesome diving, and tons of fascinating experiences. As much as I want to stay I think I am ready to go home. The knowledge I have gained, the friends I have made, and the experiences I have gone through have helped me decide what I fully want to do in my future! I am so glad I got to spend my time in the Little Caymans and I hope to come back in the future to dive and learn more about the reefs!

8/9/2016- Today was our last dive in the little Caymans, due to the fact that you should not dive 24 hours before boarding a plane! We did two dives to mark my 19th Open water Dive!! We got to see the wall of Bloody Bay and tons of fish and coral! These two dives were a fun dive and we got to watch the instructors attempt to cull Lion fish which is an invasive species. Unfortunately, they didn’t catch any, but I have a picture of what they look like from the previous time they culled the fish! 

https://international.sebs.rutgers.edu/2016/08/15/2063/

8/6/2016- There is little less than a week left of my internship. We have done so much together throughout our time here in Little Caymans. The one sport that I have been hearing  about since the day I got here is the dodgeball tournament! It’s everyone’s favorite game and that went without saying when we played tonight! The whole CCMI staff, students, and friends came out to play and have some fun! After two and a half hours of ten plus games, we finally called it a night. The fact that everyone can come together and have a great time with so many research projects going on shows how close the bonds are! 

Yesterday was one of most accomplished days here I believe so far. Since starting this trip my diving skills have been getting better each time we go below the surface. We started the day off with originally doing two dives, but we had to change plans when we noticed there were dangerous waves on the part of the island we need to get out from. So instead we did a shore dive on another part of the island. Fast forward a little bit and for the first time underwater I had very few issues keeping my buoyancy and doing transects without using a lot of air and started to visualize coral that I can name on the spot! At the end of the dive before we went back to the shore I got to practice some mask skills and I got over the fear of taking my mask off and putting back on underwater! Though I have only been here for almost two weeks it feels like time is flying by. That’s all for today!!