More Pictures

I did three more dives today: Red Slave, Red Beryl, and Karpata (in that order).  I took lots of pictures and thought that I would share some with you because I'm proud of how well they turned out.

Tiger Grouper

Smooth Trunkfish

Brittle Stars

Southern Stingray

Blue Parrotfish

Caribbean spiny lobster

Honeycomb Cowfish

Lionfish

Hawksbill sea turtle

And again

Find the sea horse

Foureyed butterflyfish

Peacock Flounder

Sun through the water

Lettuce sea slug

There are more to come once I get back.  I will be happy to share them all.  I love underwater photography despite its being so hard to catch some of these animals.  Love you all and I can't wait to come home for Christmas!

Two Weeks Notice

So I am now 21.  I was fortunate enough to be able to celebrate with everyone here, as well as with Mom and Ben the next day.  On the actual day of my birthday, I had to give my final Independent Research presentation which I believe went surprisingly well.  I was definitely nervous (because of my dislike of public speaking), but everyone sang Happy Birthday to me right before I went so my nerves were alleviated.  After all of the presentations were done, CIEE took all of us out for dessert, where I got to listen to another rendition of Happy Birthday.  I got peanut butter pie.  It was delicious, but they took it away from me twice, because Amy (a woman who works with CIEE) wanted them to bring out my dessert last with a sparkler in it, but they kept handing slices of pie to me, which kept getting taken back.  I finally got my pie back with a sparkler in it, so I was happy in the end.

On Thanksgiving was when I finally celebrated my birthday.  In the morning, Mom, Ben, and I took Katie and Mike diving at Margate Bay and the Lake.  Both were beautiful dives and I was able to take some really good pictures using my camera and my new underwater housing for it.  Here are some of the pictures that I took.  I would have taken more throughout the day, but I forgot to charge my camera battery.  I'd like to think that these are a good starting point.

Queen Angelfish

Graysby

Three Lionfish

Great Barracuda

Two Flamengo Tongues

Scorpionfish

Schoolmaster Snapper

Guess who?

Fatty Rainbow Parrotfish

Spotted Drum

Initial Phase Stoplight Parrotfish

Large Midnight Parrotfish

Gorgonians

In afternoon, we took Amanda and Ian to Karpata (my favorite dive on Bonaire so far).  Sadly, Mom forgot her wetsuit, so it was Ben and I.  On any other day, this would not have been a very large problem, but because of all the rain recently, the water has been colder.  We saw a green sea turtle and large green moray eel swimming around.  It was an interesting dive.  I was really happy to have celebrated Thanksgiving in such a fantastic way, considering we were away from the family.  It made me really excited to come home for Christmas so that I can take more pictures and tell all of the stories and such that has not made it to the blog.

This week is all about producing Physis, CIEE's research journal.  We don't have any classes this week, excluding our short meeting with the advisors in the morning.  I have less than two weeks to go.  It is definitely a bittersweet feeling.  This has been an amazing experience up to this point so far.  I have met some amazing people and it will feel weird not seeing them everyday, but at the same time I'm excited to get back to the States.  It will be nice to have a washer and dryer so that my clothes stop smelling worse coming out than going in.  It will also be nice to not have to plan trips to the grocery store in order to get milk.  It will also be hard to go back to diving in Lake Pleasant, or for that matter, not diving at all.  That's all I have for now.  Love you all!

Yay for Visiting!

So Mom is currently in Bonaire with me.  She and Ben have been here since Saturday and have been diving like crazy in one of the best places to dive in the Caribbean.  I'm so happy that they are here and that I have the opportunity to bum rides off of them in an attempt to go diving more often then I have been recently.  I logged my 50th dive today which is a really exciting accomplishment.  It has been fun to have them hear although I have been extremely busy.  Tomorrow is my 21st birthday as well as my presentation of my independent research project.  Sadly, I already want tomorrow to pass by quickly so I get my presentation out of the way and don't have to think about it anymore and go diving on Thanksgiving.  Luckily, we have a fun day planned with some really great dive sites in mind.  I just want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and tell you that I am thinking of you all and will see you all soon.  Love you!

The Countdown Begins

Again, sorry that I have been abandoning the blog.  I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what is going on with me.  Tonight is the night were my final Independent Research paper is due.  We have all been working hard to get it done.  In addition to that, we have a lab write-up and marine mammal presentation due on Tuesday, and we are all feeling a bit burned out.  The fact is that we can all see the finish line, but there is a lot of work that will be put into getting there, and it isn't getting any easier.

On Friday night we went to a kunuku.  It is hard to explain what a kunuku is, but it is a really simple lifestyle that involves having recycled furniture and the ability to trade stuff like livestock, or crops.  In this case this kunuku had farm animals, and there were a lot of them.  We had these delicious fish burgers that were made from combining fish and potatoes.  It was fun.  I have to go because this paper won't write iteself.  Love you all!

The Trials and Tribulations of Science

Assembling the cages for my Independent Research Project (including the folding and zip tying together):  5 hours

Cutting wire mesh and wrapping it around four sides of the cages:  10 hours

Attaching dive weights to the bottom: 15 minutes

Drilling holes into ceramic tiles to put in the cages: 1 hour

Walking the cages out to the study site on the sand flat: 2 hours

Finding 10 pieces of rubble with Ramicrusta and 10 pieces without: 30 minutes

Moving 5 Diadema (long-spined urchins) to place in the cages: 30 minutes

Letting the Diadema go due to not properly covered cages: 10 minutes

Cutting off the dive weights to place in the cages and move them to a rubble patch: 20 minutes

Cutting more wire mesh to cover the top of the cages to keep the Diadema from being preyed upon: 2 hours

Tweaking the experiment: 10 seconds

Removing the 10 pieces of non-Ramicrusta rubble to be replaced with 10 more pieces of Ramicrusta rubble: 20 minutes

Measuring the Ramicrusta on all of the 20 rubble pieces: 40 minutes

Catching Diadema while simultaneously zip tying the tops of the cages: 1 hour

Doing this while a storm with thunder and lightning is about to sweep over: 10 minutes

Checking on the cages the Wednesday after the storm has hit to find that they are in disarray and one of the Diadema has escaped: 10 minutes

Learning that weather that could turn into a tropical storm is going to affect the island: 2 minutes

Removing the cages from the study site and releasing the Diadema to make sure they aren't killed from the cages rolling with the help of 9 other people: 1 hour and 45 minutes

Spending this much time on getting the cages ready only to have them removed and realizing that the time you spent collecting data to make the experiment work only to have the entire idea completely scrapped and knowing that you have to disassemble stinky, pokey the cages later: Priceless

Ahh...the trials and tribulations of scientific experimentation.

Sorry for the Absence

I really am sorry for the long silence that has occurred.  Things have gotten crazy and I have gotten lazy about updating.  Luckily this is going to be one of the more relaxed weeks that I am going to have since getting here, so hopefully I will be able to fill you all in on everything.

For the most part nothing too exciting has happened.  We all got to watch a sea turtle for about 10 minutes on one of our dives.  It was the biggest I have seen in Bonaire so far so that was really cool.  The only other thing that I can think of is that we went "spelunking" on Friday to learn about Bonaire's caves.  When I think cave I think of the traditional mouth of a cave carved into the side of a mountain sort of thing, but the mouth of this cave was literally a hole in the ground.  And not even a big hole.  We did this exercise where we all turned off our lights and sat in the dark to see if the bats would fly close to us.  I was a bit reluctant about this idea, but because there were other people there more nervous about sitting in the dark than I was, I was surprisingly calm.  I didn't have a bat fly close to me, but I don't think I needed to hear such a thing anyway.  There was also a part of the cave where we had to crouch down on all fours to get under.  I mention this because one of the girls made the comparison of walking like Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.  I was in the middle of scrambling under this overhang and couldn't help but smile to myself.  I couldn't laugh out loud because I was concentrating hard on getting out, but I thought it was really funny and that you would appreciate it.  It was extremely hot and I ended up sweating out of places I didn't know I could sweat.  Luckily, that was the case for everyone so we were all able to bond over it, I think...

We had our midterm in Coral Reef Ecology last week.  It wasn't too bad, although there was a lot of material to cover so I am unsure how I did.  Based on the key that we were allowed to look at after we finished the exam, I believe that I at least got some credit on all of the questions.  We also had our Advanced Scuba Final this week.  It involved dive physics and physiology, rescue skills, EFR, DAN Oxygen, and other fun stuff.  I got confused on the first few questions so we shall also see how that went.  Monday is our Tropical Marine Conservation Biology Midterm worth 300 points.  This is the one that I am really nervous for.  There was A LOT of material covered so getting it all back into my head will be an interesting challenge.  Considering that I haven't been doing particularly well on the quizzes I am truly worried.

Went to Lac Bay yesterday.  I am currently sporting a Portland sun tan, meaning my back is a different color from my front.  Luckily I wasn't burnt too badly (compared to another girl that must be in a lot of pain right now).  This was the one time that I have gotten any sort of prolonged exposure to the sun and I got burnt! How not fun is that?  Fortunately Marissa had aloe that she let me use last night so getting to bed was a lot easier than it would have been without it.

It has also occurred to me that there are two people here that I have not introduced you to.

This is Paul.  He goes to Juniata College.  If he had a super power it would be that whatever glass he touches is half full and the word he dislikes the most is the plural of wasp.  He's pretty amusing like that.

This a Amanda.  She goes to Oregon State.  This picture is from our Rincon Walk field trip.  She is wearing a sun bonnet.  She's really cool and funny. 

So that is what has been going on as well as everyone that is on this trip.  I'll try not to be a stranger to the blog.  Love you all!

Regatta Break and the Return to Class

Regatta Break was a much needed stress reliever as well as a recovery time.  I was sick for the first half of the week which was truly an unfortunate occurrence, but it was fortunate to happen over the break.  It was also a really rainy break.  At night when all of the fun, music, food, and partying going on it would rain.  Rain basically stops the island.  Marissa and  I discovered a leak in the middle of our room.  Potentially a very hazardous and slippery situation.  I did end up going on three dives, which was a lot of fun.  The first one we went on was named Lighthouse.  It is on the very southern tip of the island.  There was a wind reversal that left the south part of the island calm.  This was probably one of the only opportunities to dive the south tip.  It was a really cool dive with some fun topography.  We did this dive with a large group of people which as good.  I saw this weird Crown of Thorns/anemone hybrid thing.  I had never seen anything like it before.  The other two dives were on Sunday before we had to go back to class.  We went back to the Hilma Hooker.  I was happy to hang out on it a little while longer and look at it.  My dive buddy, Andrew, and I saw some large Tarpon, a large barracuda, and a fatty tiger grouper.  There were a lot of people diving it when we got there.  In the afternoon, after grabbing a quick sandwich, we went to one of the most popular dive sites, Karpata.  It was hands-down the most beautiful dive I have ever done.  I could have been down there for hours, if only I could.  There was so much to see.  The reef was covered in coral and interesting topography.  It was covered in lots of soft corals.  I want to go again.  The only unfortunate thing was the rough entry and bit of wave action, but it turned out to be a solid 57 minute dive. Mom, I think that this dive is what you were expecting to see in Hawaii.  It was the best ending to Regatta Break possible.

I have a feeling that school will be as busy as possible.  Already I have another long To Do List that will never get done.  I'm excited to learn about videography tomorrow.  I also calculated that I have spent over 24 hours underwater.  That is one quality day.  Love you all!