Working as field marine biologist. Freediving with stingrays.

Working as field marine biologist many times is fun. You can see and do things other people don't. But the day is not like this everyday. Many days you have to work on your laptop and when you are working on the field your time is usually limited. When you freedive with animals that can move (dolphins, seals, stingrays, sharks, etc) the joy of swimming near them is only few seconds (it's very rare for every dive to swim for minutes with any of this animals). Now, by freediving with stingrays you have to dive in front of them and go closer as slow you can without make any noise, bubble, or not even move your hands. You must get close slowly with only moving slightly your fins. If you are able to move close, you have to look their behavior. It's not funny, because the stingrays can easily be scared and they have a stinger in the middle of their tail which they can sting you and instead of having fun you will find yourself to the hospital with plenty of pain and toxin in your system. What I am doing and freediving with stingrays? Because it's nursery area, the first thing I am doing is to observe them and count how many stingrays I see in my every dive. That is more useful when there are newborns at the first week of July. But i am observing the area for as many months I can. Then I am observing their behavior, how they react to human interactions and to weather conditions (I have freedived with 1 meter swell and very strong currents to observe how they react and live in those conditions). And last, I am taking as many photos and videos I can and upload those observations to Citizen science platforms like iNaturalist, or Elasmobranches research projects.