Old Dan Bank

Friday started with a lesson on the creatures that fall under the Phylum Porifera (sponges) and Arthropoda (sea spiders, crabs, shrimp, etc), as well as some discussion regarding plankton and other life in the epipelagic. All of this information was incredibly helpful as we spent the rest of the morning and afternoon at Old Dan Bank. Here we collected samples and observed organisms such as Echinaster sentus, the thorny starfish, and Petrochirus diogenes, the giant hermit crab. At one point we even saw a small octopus hiding in a shell, and upon collection, we noticed her hatchlings swimming around. Multiple types of shrimp, crabs and sponges were collected which gave us an opportunity to use our knowledge from the morning lecture. We were split up into groups and created research questions to study at Old Dan Bank. On our boat trip back to the station, we continued identifying some of our collected species. Everyone had a great time collecting shells, identifying new organisms and following schools of fish through the seagrass beds.

In the evening we reconvened for dinner and ate some rice and beans with fruit juice, a delicious dish one of the students had eaten in Tanzania on SST and loved. We sat on the porch for a while and talked, laughed and got to know each other. The day concluded with a group of students watching the beautiful sunset at the boat docks.

Mia Yoder, ’25