Turtles, Goodbye Parties, and AOW, Oh My!

So I'm getting progressively worse at blogging as this semester goes on. I would apologize, but that implies that I'm going to fix the problem...which is unlikely. We're just so busy! All the time! So you guys will just have to wait and be content stalking the Facebook pictures I get tagged in.

All of that boring stuff aside, I got to go TURTLING last Saturday night! This is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of us went for a night snorkel to catch turtles with our Resource Management professor and one of the interns. This is easier said than done: you only get one chance to catch a turtle. They're pretty sleepy at night, so if you sneak up on them you can pretty much just pick them up as they float lazily along the bottom. If, however, they figure out that you are trying to catch them (which is what happened to me the first couple of times), they will dart away with surprising speed. Turtles are tricky little buggers. However, my buddy and I were very successful and each managed to catch a turtle. He caught a mid sized green who was swimming along, and I pulled a sleeping hawksbill from under a rock. So my catch was not very impressive, but I was pretty psyched all the same. In total we got four turtles, two of each species, including one HUGE green. Two were tagged already, so we took down their numbers and measurements, and two were not tagged. So they got little metal things punched into them (it doesn't hurt them, don't worry!) and were measured as well. In a week or so the turtle research project will start in ernest, and more data will be collected, but for now we're just trying to get some basic stuff. And, since I know this is what you guys really want to see, here are some turtle pictures:

THIS IS MY TURTLE. I CAUGHT HIM. WE ARE FRIENDS.

Getting measured

For some reason I can't rotate this, but here's Charlie with his giant turtle

Yesterday was our last day in the local schools, and since they were having a party anyway before their two week break for Easter (so unfair), we thought we'd join them. So we brought cupcakes and face paint and it was general pandemonium. You may remember by description of the behavior of these kids, and while they are hilarious and I love them they are also completely insane. Telling them to not push each other in the face paint line was like telling fish to climb trees. But they are actually wonderful, and were so happy to see us, and were endlessly fascinated by our cameras.

Two of my girls from the kindergarten

He only looks adorable and innocent...troublemaker level 1000

Aurora being a good sport and doing face paint

Another one of my girls, such a cutie

In addition to all of this, I've been getting Advanced Open Water certified! This means that I can dive deeper, longer, do drift dives, night dives, and all sorts of fun stuff. Plus it's another step along the way to becoming a Master Diver, which is sweet. We've done peak performance buoyancy, navigation, night, and drift, and just have a deep water dive left on Saturday. Pretty fun stuff. On our last dive we saw two HUGE southern stingrays. Like, as big as me huge. It was awesome. 

And on top of all of THAT we have like fifty final projects and finals and presentations and papers and basically my brain is going to explode. So this blog post is really just a glorified study break...sorry guys. Also I've decided that I'm going WWOOFing someday. Spring break next year anyone?