Day 12: 9/6/09

We got up early this morning to travel to Barro Colorado Island (BCI). We met Steve at the docks near the entrance to Pipeline Road at 7:45 to sign in and reserve our spots on the boat. The boat left promptly at 8am and took a half hour to travel along the canal channel to the island. Along the way we were able to see the huge freighters moving along the channel as well as see the expansion work being done on the canal shores to widen it.

We arrived at the docks and immediately started our hike up from the compound into the island itself. After about two kilometers, we reached the summit and then headed to Steve's plot to do work on the fisher's alpha. Along the way we stopped to observe the many insects and plants, including huge garden spiders and a variety of interesting trees that Steve pointed out to us.

When we reached the plot, each of us headed out in different directions from the trail to begin collecting samples. The process was much easier than on Volcan Baru because all we had to do was record the tag numbers in our notebooks. We all were able to complete 35 samples each.

As we headed back down to the compound, we spotted howler monkeys and capuchins, as well as agouti's and even a coral snake!

After the longest hike during the trip in hot and humid weather, we were all relieved that lunch was being served right as we returned to the compound. We all replenished our stomachs and then explored around the compound until we had to leave at 2:30.

After a long, tiring, but eventful day, we returned to Steve and Patti's house in Gamboa to work on our individual presentations the next day. Needless to say, after we finished preparing our presentations, we all slept very well!
(pictures coming very soon!)