Service Hours: Oystering

Hello!
I had the pleasure of going out with the Marine Science People today and had a fantastic time. Almost to good, now I want to be a marine biologist. Part of my colloquium requirements is that I perform 10 hours of service learning. The Coastal Watershed Institute is doing some work on Oyster reefs, in Ten Thousands Islands preserve, Naples. They needed help taking Oyster samples and collecting data on water conditions. I volunteered for them.
Their field teams are composed of a boat captain, two interns and occasionally a volunteer. Today I was the volunteer. It was a really neat experience. As we left our docking site we cruised by two huge (at least 8 footers) alligators. Later down the estuary we saw manatees as well. When we reached the mangrove areas where we were collecting oyster samples, we jumped stright into the water. I decided to jump in last as I was still thinking of the two big gators I saw earlier. Once in the water, I realized it was too salty at this point for gators to swim around.
The drill was to collect forty oyster per site. 10 were to be used to test for contaminants in the water and I have no idea what the other 30 were for. Oysters (I found this out today) grow in clusters. My job was to separate Oyster from these cluster and bag them away. I was given a pair of gloves and an oyster shack, I basically had to chisell single oysters from their clusters.
We sampled a total of 6 sites; by site number four I was already an expert! Any oyster Bar would be lucky to have me... I can shack oyster like no one else,can!