Day 11: It’s Called Paddling, Not Rowing!

It seems like the days just keep getting better and better. In the morning, we went to the lab at the NTBG and start more research. We started with using the spectrometer to read all of our 11 rock samples. Then, I went and started calibrating  our 5 Loggers that we used and are going to use to take samples of the water. The loggers measure the pressure, temperature, and conductivity of the water. After that, we went and ate lunch and talked about our individual projects. I am going to be using the rocks that we gathered and map out the coastline using ArcGIS and ERDAS. Then, I want to compare my results to a map by geologist Chuck Blay created and see if our maps match up.

In the afternoon and evening, our group met up with the paddling club of Kauai. It was so much fun. First, we hooked our loggers to the team’s canoes to start our readings of the pressure, temperature, salinity, and conductivity. Then, we helped the teams into the water and off they went on 7 or 8 mile paddling practice. Next, we were taught the safety rules of paddling and then we got out into the water. Tim, the instructor, put me in the front of the canoe because I said I had some paddling experience. The only paddling experience I have had was paddling a concrete canoe (that floats) at a conference for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The person in the front of the canoe is called the stroker  and that is the person who sets the stroke for the rest of the canoe. I was really nervous but it was actually really fun once we started.

After we were done, we gathered our loggers and data and went out for dinner, considering we weren’t around for dinner time and weren’t able to eat.