marsh marsh marsh marsh

so today was another adventure out in the marsh. This time we (charlotte, Moojoon, becky roman and I) took the boat out to cruse around the Pearl River and wonder into the Pearl River marsh. So it started off a little rocky, as i was standing next to the boat launch guiding charlotte in backing up the boat, my left foot (only the left thankfully) was attacked by fireants. There are atleast 5 bites (one between the toes), and my foot is huge and swollen and red and hurts like hell!!!!!!!!! So, we then get in the boat and get on our way. About 10min down the Pearl the boat just stops. So, charlotte and i mess around with wires, then i discover that the fuel line has come undone. So i bring out the duct tape and reattach the fuel line (charlotte doesnt take duct tape as part of her field gear so she was happy i never go out without it:)). We get the boat started again and it runs for a few minutes and then it dies again :(. so we mess with this and that and no luck. so there was a southern wind and we were heading nort and this boat has a fabric cover that can be set at any angle, so we used that sort of as a sale and paddled back to the dock. we called merrit one of the tecs and he meet us there, played with the boat for a while, and we figured out that b/c of the gas line coming unconnected a bunch of air got in the fuel line and the pump used to prime the gas line was not strong enough to get rid of the air bubble. so merrit siphoned (sp?) the line ended up taking a couple mouthfulls/faces of gas and got it going again. So we were back on our way into the marsh :). so after all of these things, stuff went well. Saw a gator, bald eagle, fiddler crab. Got really really muddy, had to army craw a bit to get my legs unstuck, got great samples and a bit of a sunburn. So in the end it was a great time :)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!mmmm i love getting muddy :)