- biologist: scientist who studies living things, including their origins, structures, activities, and distribution
- bluff: a high, steep slope or cliff
- encounter: an unexpected meeting
- exhaling: breathing out
- lagoon: a pond or small lake, especially one connected with a larger body of water
- massive: big and heavy; bulky
- rumbling: making a deep, heavy, continous sound
- tropical: of or like the regions 23.45 degrees north or south of the equator where the sun can shine directly overhead