Day 4: July 8, 2012

Walked to Richie this morning!!

We sampled the west side first. There were lots of leeches in this one. Ewwwwwwwwww. :P They couldn't get into our wetsuits though, but not for lack of their trying. I got 3 or 4 tiny ones stuck to my gloves.

Part of why I wear neoprene socks! To keep the leeches out!

We're doing two types of plant collection on this trip: plant collection for the MSU Herbarium, and plant collection for Angela's genetic analyses later on in her project. For the Herbarium, she's just trying to get representative samples of all of the species in the lake, to be pressed and kept on record. For her project, we're specifically getting Nuphar variegata and Utricularia vulgaris, and taking waypoints of the samples with descriptions of where they were found. Nuphar variegata is a rooted plant, and Utricularia vulgaris is free floating, so it should be interesting to see how the genetic differences and similarities compare within each species.

This is a bed of Nuphar variegata!! I like their yellow flowers.

We saw a bald eagle!! Very cool.

We also saw several painted turtles!! These guys were catching some sun on a log.

While we were sampling, the sky started getting dark... So we packed up and started going back to shore. And then we heard thunder and saw lightning. o_O So we booked it to shore. The storm started after we got to shore, and we packed up in the pouring rain. Literally two minutes after we finished packing up, the rain stopped completely.

-____-

The weather is certainly a tricky thing up here. It looked so sunny when we left. Wouldn't have ever guessed that it would be storming by 3:30 pm.

We decided to hike back since we were all packed up, and resume sampling early the next day!

Every time we hiked through this area, it reminded us of Jurassic Park because of the ferns! The hike to and from Richie was a really nice one!

 Once we got back, Sarah and Charlotte went swimming in the ice cold Moskey Basin, and I did chemistry on our last sample on our little rock-porch. Didn't feel like jumping in the water myself, since I was in it all day in a wetsuit!