So this was honestly the busiest week I have ever had. Whenever I managed to finish one assignment, there was always another one to fill its spot. I will have to break down this week down day by day so that I don't leave anything out.
Sunday
Our Independent Research Project was due at midnight. So of course, we spent the morning on Saturday at Lac Bay trying to prepare for doing our projects. On Sunday, all of us were up and working on our proposals, but Maria, our teach for Tropical Marine Conservation Biology and one of our research advisors, decided to take us to hear and meet Ned Deloach. He is one of the co-authors of THE marine identification book that is used by scientists and anyone else who is interested in the subject. He also co-founded REEF. If you guys would like to Google it, it's really hard for me to explain. This talk went from 6:45-9:30pm. Luckily, I had done a lot of work and was in a pretty good place at this point in the writing process, but a lot of people were not close to done. We were all dying to get back to finish our proposals and Maria was taking her sweet time getting us back to the house despite the fact that she knows we have the proposal due, and not just that, but also reading for her class, which of course she quizzed us on in the morning.
Monday
Apart from the quiz, a good thing that happened was Sarah, one of the interns, taught the lecture in the morning. Without her teaching, I'm not sure that I would have made it through the lecture. We were all truly exhausted at the start of the week. We learned more about pollution. Another assignment that we did in class was getting into groups of four and summarizing an article. They gave us a series of questions that we had to answer. The frustrating thing was that they only gave us 20 minutes to read it and then talk about who was going to talk about what in our group. These weren't short articles either. They ended up giving us more time, because the assignment was impossible to complete in the time alloted. In the afternoon, a guest speaker came in to talk about an on-going monitoring program that is currently going on Bonaire. We then went on a dive to look at the monitoring system that is on the reef. It had been raining a lot that day so the visibility was terrible compared to what is normal for Bonaire. We also learned how to take water samples. I discovered that I am terrible at staying in the same place in the water without a good reference point. We had split into three groups for the dive and I ended up in the group at the highest depth, so I got to play in the bubbles of the ten people below me which I thought was really fun. After the dive, we went back to the house to dry off, but had to go back the lab to learn how to test water samples. The night was spent preparing for class the next morning by doing the reading.
Tuesday
For class we went to catch plankton. We all went on a boat, got into groups of four, and did four different stations. The four stations were vertical plankton tow, GPS and water testing, point sampling (the device broke so my group didn't get to do this), and Sechhi disk (which tests for visibility). We did this near shore and further away from shore. We had time to go snorkel on Klein Bonaire for about ten minutes. We then went back to shore to dry off and get to the classroom to do a plankton lecture. After lunch, we went to the lab to look at the plankton we had captured. This doesn't sound like too crazy day, but let me just tell you all the assignments that were due this week.
1) Service Project Proposal for Thursday (in groups of four)
2) Reflection Paper from out trip to Mangazina de Rei for Friday
3) Plankton Lab write-up for Thursday
4) Reading for Coral Reef Ecology on Thursday
5) Reading "The Story of Papiamentu" p. 1-55
6) Summary of the Papiamentu Reading
7) Be prepared to give a presentation to the class about how one of these cultures: Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, or African influenced Papiamentu, but you don't know which so prepare for all of them
8) Studying for Papiamentu class Thursday night
9) Graphs of Beach clean-up data due Sunday
I even feel as though I'm possibly missing some assignments. So I was working on all of these assignments in addition to all of the class time that we were putting in.
Wednesday
We went to Lac Bay to start working on the research project. I spent the vast majority of the day building cages for my experiment. I fortunately had at least one person working with me to get it done, but I still haven't finished making the cages so I have to work on those over Regatta Break so that I'm ready to set the cages out the next time we go to Lac Bay. I also have to make a stand so that I take the same picture every time I go for my project and drill holes into tiles for my project as well. So much for Regatta break being relaxing. The really awesome thing that we did Wednesday was our night dive in tandem with a coral spawning dive. My dive buddy was Beth, as usual. I trust her a lot so it was comfortable. I got to see two coral spawn, meaning releasing their egg/sperm packets. It was really cool to see. We also got to see a lot of bioluminescence and brittle stars. The eels are also active at night to there were more of them swimming around. The corals are also more vulnerable at night because they let their polyps come out so I had to be extra careful about not accidentally touching one. It as fun to see the reef that we have swam in countless time transform into an entirely new place. This dive marks my completion of the requirements to become an advanced diver. YAY! This dive ended up adding another assignment to the list above which was two paragraphs: one scientific about what we saw where and one about what we thought. This wasn't a bad assignment, but it felt like some of these assignments were there for the purpose of busy work which was frustrating.
Thursday
We were supposed to go to Lac Bay in the morning, but Caren took pity on us and cancelled that trip so we didn't have class until two which gave me time to work on all of the homework we had. We learned about oceans, currents, climate change, and REEF Fish ID. It was a fairly relaxed class compared to what we had been doing during the week so far. Because we saw very few coral spawn, some of us decided to do another night dive to try to see more. I saw some sperm get released, but no egg packets. I got to see a lettuce leaf slug, a peacock flounder (which Beth pet), a spotted lobster, and lots of creatures that I already mentioned above. I had busted my butt working on assignments non-stop all week. I worked, went to bed, got up, and continued to work. It was a lot of fun to do. I'm glad that did it.
Friday
We were supposed to have class at 11, but it was cancelled due to the fact the discussion that was planned regarding how the various cultures influenced Papiamentu, did not correspond with the reading. We did, however, go do a walk in Rincon for the class. I got chewed up by mosquitoes and have to reflection paper for it. I was just so exhausted at this point that I didn't particularly enjoy it. Because of this week, I have developed a head cold. I have been fighting it since Thursday after the night dive. I don't like being sick, especially during a time where there is so much going on. That's what I have for now. I'll upload pictures later.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Just Another Rainy Day
In all seriousness, nothing really exciting has happened in these past few days after diving the Hilma Hooker. There has been a tropical depression in the South Caribbean that has been spitting rain at the island for the past few days. On Wednesday, we were supposed to go to Lac Bay to work on our research projects for a while, but that got rained out. We were supposed to have another outing at Lac the next morning, but that got cancelled too, so we had class in the classroom and then had the afternoon off. On Friday, we didn't have class until 11am, so we talked about our learning styles for an hour and went on a field trip to Mangazina de Rei. It was were the slaves would travel to get provisions. It is currently a museum and cultural center. That was pretty fun. The Lac Bay trip that was cancelled on Wednesday was moved to this morning, but was cancelled again until tomorrow morning, the day that our independent research project proposal is due. It is really frustrating to have to figure how to do all of this and keep getting our schedule rearranged, but I can understand the necessity of it. There has seriously been nothing to report. Sorry for my first really boring blog. Love you!
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Finally did the Hooker!
I has been a while since my last post. As usual it is because of all the crazy stuff that we have all been doing here. I will do my best to catch you all up on all the going's on.
On Saturday I participated in a clean up dive at one of the piers downtown. I actually forgot my dive computer and had to go back to get it and ended up diving with a complete stranger (I can't even remember his name) for my buddy. It worked out okay. I felt really confident in navigating around this new dive site because it was similar to Yellow Sub (the place where we have made the majority of our dives). It felt good to help clean up the area. There was so many things there! A lot of glass bottles! Glass is the only thing that they recycle on the island. I believe that this is because there are no facilities to deal with any other type of recycling. There was a barbeque after the dive to celebrate all those that participated. There were approximately 70 people. CIEE was a good number of those people.
We were supposed to go to the national park on Sunday, but because of all the rain that we have been getting, some of the roads were impassable so we rescheduled for the next week, the day that our project proposal is due.
On Monday, we had Tropical Marine Conservation Ecology. We always have this class on Monday. We learned about pollution. The point was really hammered home when we drove to the landfill and did a beach clean up. There was so much garbage on this beach that for the hour we were there cleaning up we barely made a dent. I can't help but feel a little hopeless about the whole thing. What possible solutions are there? Recycling can only do so much. Where is the garbage supposed to go, especially on an island this size? This is such a global problem and sometimes I feel as though I'm one person and though I want to make a positive difference, there are so many forces out there rallying against what I could be doing. I remember a few summers ago when I became so frustrated with my dad because he threw a bag of recyclables in the trash and said that those few recyclables didn't make a difference. I want to believe that the recycling I do will help, but seeing the amount of trash on that beach stopped me short. I suppose that I have to stick to my beliefs that I can make some sort of impact with the help of others trying to make a difference as well. Those were all the thoughts that went through my head on Monday.
Today was really exciting! This morning consisted of doing the knowledge reviews for the deep dive and night dive, learning about dive physics, and taking the Rescue Diver exam. All-in-all it was a pretty relaxed morning. In the afternoon, I was fortunate enough to do my very first deep dive, and to some degree, my very first wreck dive. The site was called the Hilma Hooker, hence the name of the post for all of you dirty-minded people out there. Caren, our teacher for Advanced Scuba, Coral Reef Ecology, and Marine Ecology Field Research Methods, told us the story of the Hilma Hooker. Apparently, there was a ship that was injured, but instead of coming into harbor, it attempted to hide behind Klein Bonaire. Obviously the ship of the story is the Hilma Hooker.
On Saturday I participated in a clean up dive at one of the piers downtown. I actually forgot my dive computer and had to go back to get it and ended up diving with a complete stranger (I can't even remember his name) for my buddy. It worked out okay. I felt really confident in navigating around this new dive site because it was similar to Yellow Sub (the place where we have made the majority of our dives). It felt good to help clean up the area. There was so many things there! A lot of glass bottles! Glass is the only thing that they recycle on the island. I believe that this is because there are no facilities to deal with any other type of recycling. There was a barbeque after the dive to celebrate all those that participated. There were approximately 70 people. CIEE was a good number of those people.
We were supposed to go to the national park on Sunday, but because of all the rain that we have been getting, some of the roads were impassable so we rescheduled for the next week, the day that our project proposal is due.
On Monday, we had Tropical Marine Conservation Ecology. We always have this class on Monday. We learned about pollution. The point was really hammered home when we drove to the landfill and did a beach clean up. There was so much garbage on this beach that for the hour we were there cleaning up we barely made a dent. I can't help but feel a little hopeless about the whole thing. What possible solutions are there? Recycling can only do so much. Where is the garbage supposed to go, especially on an island this size? This is such a global problem and sometimes I feel as though I'm one person and though I want to make a positive difference, there are so many forces out there rallying against what I could be doing. I remember a few summers ago when I became so frustrated with my dad because he threw a bag of recyclables in the trash and said that those few recyclables didn't make a difference. I want to believe that the recycling I do will help, but seeing the amount of trash on that beach stopped me short. I suppose that I have to stick to my beliefs that I can make some sort of impact with the help of others trying to make a difference as well. Those were all the thoughts that went through my head on Monday.
Today was really exciting! This morning consisted of doing the knowledge reviews for the deep dive and night dive, learning about dive physics, and taking the Rescue Diver exam. All-in-all it was a pretty relaxed morning. In the afternoon, I was fortunate enough to do my very first deep dive, and to some degree, my very first wreck dive. The site was called the Hilma Hooker, hence the name of the post for all of you dirty-minded people out there. Caren, our teacher for Advanced Scuba, Coral Reef Ecology, and Marine Ecology Field Research Methods, told us the story of the Hilma Hooker. Apparently, there was a ship that was injured, but instead of coming into harbor, it attempted to hide behind Klein Bonaire. Obviously the ship of the story is the Hilma Hooker.
In case you can't tell from this picture, Klein Bonaire is extremely flat and not at all a good place to hide behind if you are a 300 foot ship. So clearly this is a suspicious occurrence and will only become more so. Officials go and board the boat to find a skeleton crew. They seize the ship and begin searching, but don't find anything out of the ordinary. Captain Don (a local hero of the island who pretty much single-handedly made the scuba dive culture on Bonaire and named practically every dive site) and his girlfriend of the time went to scuba dive around the ship and found a fake hold filled with marijuana. Needless to say, the crew was sent back home. The owner of the ship was never identified or found, so the government of Bonaire was left with a ship and nothing to do with it. They decided that divers on Bonaire needed a wreck dive, considering that they didn't have one, and so decided to sink it between the sand flat of a double reef. They gutted the ship and got rid of anything that could be potentially dangerous to the reef. The problem that they encountered was getting the permits to go ahead with the sinking. The story goes that some time later an inflatable was seen racing away from the Hilma Hooker (said to be Captain Don) just before it began to sink. It sank in twenty minutes and landed upon the intended spot without any damage to the reefs. Now it stands as the most popular wreck dive on Bonaire and lies at 99 feet.
The skills that we did for the deep dive certification was looking at colors (mainly the color red) and an imploded tennis ball. Caren, my instructor for the dive, cracked an egg and then sucked it into a water bottle. Our last task was to solve six multiplication problems. At the surface, I was able to do this in ten seconds, but at depth it took me twenty seconds. Also of note was that the problems were different between the surface and at depth, but of the same difficulty. We started at the stern and then went around the boat, looking into the cargo hold (because the Hilma Hooker is laying on the starboard side) and ended at the bow. We then left. It was so cool! A lot us want to go back to check it out for a little bit longer for a fun dive. Being at 98 feet felt no different to me than being at 30 feet. I didn't even realize that we were really descending until the wreck came into view. The only thing that was unfortunate was the weather. It was raining the vast majority of the day (due to the tropical depression in the area that has cause us to cancel our planned trip to Lac Bay tomorrow to work on our independent research projects), so the visibility was terrible and the clouds didn't give us much light to work by. I got to use my dive flashlight for the first time which was pretty fun. At the surface we worked on a rescue scenario. That was my day which was very exciting!
Tomorrow will be all about getting the vast majority of my project proposal done. They work us really hard. It feels as though all we have time to do is eat, sleep, dive, and work. It has been a while since I have had such a structured environment that wasn't self-imposed. Working hard and continuing to get to know everyone here. Every so often I have moments where I tell myself how much I love everyone here just because I do. It's a great feeling. Love you!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Ready for the Weekend
Yesterday was a pretty good day. The class of the morning was coral reef ecology. I must admit that I am a bit overwhelmed by the fact that go through lectures so fast. We covered three different lectures and my hand was throbbing from all of the writing I was doing to keep up. Caren (the professor) is a very fast lecturer! Even though I am used to the three-hour class format, I'm not quite ready for this one, hard to explain. Anyway....
In the afternoon we did AGRRA benthic surveys at Windsock and Cliff. If you remember, I wrote about a really miserable dive, that was Windsock. Trust me when I say that I was more than a little nervous about trying to do it again, but I did. The thing is that Caren only required one of these dives to do the AGRRA survey, so I didn't have to do Windsock if I didn't want to, but I conquered my nerves and did both dives yesterday. I am so happy I did, because it was a much different site today than it was previously. There was no current although there was some surge on the way into shore. Windsock is a really beautiful site and if the conditions are not miserable, I would definitely like to explore it a bit more. Fewer people did Cliff, but after we did the surveys, we all went on a ten-minute tour. We went and saw the Cliff that gives the site its name. There were some squid, an ocean triggerfish, and a really large tarpin. It was by far the largest fish that I have ever seen, but considering that I haven't seen that many fish to begin with (though I will admit that I have seen more than most), it was a large fish.
We got back from Cliff at about 5:30 and had to start working on the homework due today, because from 7-8 is dinner time and 8-9 was our Papiamentu crash course. None of us wanted to go back to the classroom at night after the long day that we had, but I was, at least, pleasantly surprised by the woman that said she was going to be instructing us. I suppose that she embodies the Bonairian spirit. She is very enthusiastic and expressive. We were just thrown into the class (the definition of "crash") and she seemed to expect us to have done homework that we didn't know that we had been assigned. She started throwing words and phrases at us and gave us a quiz at the end (that we were luckily allowed to use our notes on), but Papiamentu doesn't seem like that hard a language to attempt to learn. At least I don't have to conjugate anything. Next time, we will at be prepared for the craziness that will be thrown our way.
I am really ready for the weekend to begin, so for your enjoyment, here are some more introductions as well as random pictures.
Because I have introduced you to the people to the left and right of her, you can deduce that the person I am introducing you to is Annarose. She goes to Oregon State and is extremely smart. She did an internship this summer at a marine lab (I believe) and it shows, because she has knowledge about everything that is required in a project proposal.
If you could please excuse my hideousness in this picture, this is Beth. She is a divemaster and has been my dive buddy on the majority of the dives we've done. We work really well together, so I like being buddied with her. She goes to Wofford.
I know that there is a lot of attractiveness in this photo (it is amazing the things that people will do when they don't understand that you are taking pictures for a blog), but the girl in the middle is Rachael. She goes to Ursinus and was one of the people certified at the beginning of this program (and was my first buddy). She is one of the nicest people I have met, in case you couldn't tell from the smile. She also plays softball. Anyway, those are all the pictures I have of people. I have to figure out who I have left to introduce you to and get pictures of them. Love you!
In the afternoon we did AGRRA benthic surveys at Windsock and Cliff. If you remember, I wrote about a really miserable dive, that was Windsock. Trust me when I say that I was more than a little nervous about trying to do it again, but I did. The thing is that Caren only required one of these dives to do the AGRRA survey, so I didn't have to do Windsock if I didn't want to, but I conquered my nerves and did both dives yesterday. I am so happy I did, because it was a much different site today than it was previously. There was no current although there was some surge on the way into shore. Windsock is a really beautiful site and if the conditions are not miserable, I would definitely like to explore it a bit more. Fewer people did Cliff, but after we did the surveys, we all went on a ten-minute tour. We went and saw the Cliff that gives the site its name. There were some squid, an ocean triggerfish, and a really large tarpin. It was by far the largest fish that I have ever seen, but considering that I haven't seen that many fish to begin with (though I will admit that I have seen more than most), it was a large fish.
We got back from Cliff at about 5:30 and had to start working on the homework due today, because from 7-8 is dinner time and 8-9 was our Papiamentu crash course. None of us wanted to go back to the classroom at night after the long day that we had, but I was, at least, pleasantly surprised by the woman that said she was going to be instructing us. I suppose that she embodies the Bonairian spirit. She is very enthusiastic and expressive. We were just thrown into the class (the definition of "crash") and she seemed to expect us to have done homework that we didn't know that we had been assigned. She started throwing words and phrases at us and gave us a quiz at the end (that we were luckily allowed to use our notes on), but Papiamentu doesn't seem like that hard a language to attempt to learn. At least I don't have to conjugate anything. Next time, we will at be prepared for the craziness that will be thrown our way.
I am really ready for the weekend to begin, so for your enjoyment, here are some more introductions as well as random pictures.
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| Annarose (in the center) |
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| Beth |
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| Rachael |
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The First School Week
I haven't written in a few days so please bear with me as I attempt to recap the journey so far.
Monday
This was the first day Tropical Marine Ecology. The class simply consisted of us talking about what we will be learning in the class. The professor, a French woman with a fairly strong accent, lectured about why marine ecosystems are more complicated than terrestrial ones. I suppose that being a terrestrial mammal would make it hard for most people to understand a marine environment.
We went to Lac Bay in the afternoon to snorkel in the mangroves. They were eerie because the visibility is lower than I have experienced in Bonaire, and there are a lot of fish, including the Great Barracuda. They are not that large, but very fast and clearly hunters. The mangroves contain many, many upside-down jellyfish, which look like anemones. Also saw a lot of baby fish. They were too cute for words. I enjoyed seeing the mini fish, but it was a bit too creepy, imagining all of the things that can hide in the mangrove roots. At least in Lake Pleasant, I know that there aren't big fish that could potentially come out of no where, but this is not the case in Lac Bay. Luckily I had a wetsuit on or else I would have been very unhappy with all of the grasses touching me.
Tuesday
This was Coral Reef Ecology class day. We talked about all the things we would be doing during the semester. We did Coral Jeopardy. My team, the Claminators, placed third out of four. I at least answered one of the questions and helped the team. We then continued to learn more about coral and algae.
The afternoon involved a dive where we looked for various phyla on the reef and collected algae. I had a new dive buddy, Andrew, who I featured a few posts ago. We also practiced rescue skills, and I was the victim in one of the scenarios. My feelings were a bit hurt by how hard my rescuers found it to get me out of the water. It was a fun dive though. We were finally able to dive without having extremely strict objectives besides looking for various creatures among the coral and the reef.
Today
We did project proposal presentations in front of the class and had meetings with our advisor. Everyone is a bit upset by the fact that we were forced to do the project proposal outline and a bibliography without having any meetings with our advisor first. The vast majority of us felt lost and clueless. During the advisor meetings after the presentations, many people had their projects changed, including me. The only good thing that came out of this is that I know what I'll be researching. My project is about Diadema antillarum (long-spined urchin) and Ramicrusta (a type of algae) in Lac Bay and whether the urchins are having any impact on the spread of Ramicrusta. The thing is that not much os know about Ramicrusta so there are many wider implications that could come out of my study whether I get results or not. It is going to be an interesting project at least. I think that I was one of the few that didn't get my butt handed to me during the meeting. Ah well, it's just a part of the learning process.
I feel as though I should also comment on the fact that things are not as good as they should be. Before you jump to any conclusions, I am happy and I'm talking about the fact that the power completely shut down during class today, the guy who makes our food can't seem to prepare enough or produce enough variety, the front gate to the house that we use is broken, and the sink in one of the rooms fell out of the wall one night (proceeded to drip on the floor and flooded the room a bit). It seems like the program and house was not built to hold sixteen people (not including the four interns in the room above the house). Anyway, here is my update.
Now for some more introductions:
This is Ian. He goes to Vassar. He cracks me up and definitely dishes sarcasm right back at me, which I love.
Osha is from Australia and has an accent that I really love, but sometimes no one can understand her because either her accent or the random words that she uses. She is a sweetheart and gave me Nutella on a cracker today, so how could I not like her?
Dan goes to University of Oregon. He and I are both doing urchins for our project. He is really nice, although I have a lot more to learn about him.
Tom goes to Goucher and plays lacrosse there. Tom is Tom. He is really hard to explain. But that's all I have for introductions today. I have discovered that I need to get more pictures of people so that I can get them up on this blog. Love you all!
Monday
This was the first day Tropical Marine Ecology. The class simply consisted of us talking about what we will be learning in the class. The professor, a French woman with a fairly strong accent, lectured about why marine ecosystems are more complicated than terrestrial ones. I suppose that being a terrestrial mammal would make it hard for most people to understand a marine environment.
We went to Lac Bay in the afternoon to snorkel in the mangroves. They were eerie because the visibility is lower than I have experienced in Bonaire, and there are a lot of fish, including the Great Barracuda. They are not that large, but very fast and clearly hunters. The mangroves contain many, many upside-down jellyfish, which look like anemones. Also saw a lot of baby fish. They were too cute for words. I enjoyed seeing the mini fish, but it was a bit too creepy, imagining all of the things that can hide in the mangrove roots. At least in Lake Pleasant, I know that there aren't big fish that could potentially come out of no where, but this is not the case in Lac Bay. Luckily I had a wetsuit on or else I would have been very unhappy with all of the grasses touching me.
Tuesday
This was Coral Reef Ecology class day. We talked about all the things we would be doing during the semester. We did Coral Jeopardy. My team, the Claminators, placed third out of four. I at least answered one of the questions and helped the team. We then continued to learn more about coral and algae.
The afternoon involved a dive where we looked for various phyla on the reef and collected algae. I had a new dive buddy, Andrew, who I featured a few posts ago. We also practiced rescue skills, and I was the victim in one of the scenarios. My feelings were a bit hurt by how hard my rescuers found it to get me out of the water. It was a fun dive though. We were finally able to dive without having extremely strict objectives besides looking for various creatures among the coral and the reef.
Today
We did project proposal presentations in front of the class and had meetings with our advisor. Everyone is a bit upset by the fact that we were forced to do the project proposal outline and a bibliography without having any meetings with our advisor first. The vast majority of us felt lost and clueless. During the advisor meetings after the presentations, many people had their projects changed, including me. The only good thing that came out of this is that I know what I'll be researching. My project is about Diadema antillarum (long-spined urchin) and Ramicrusta (a type of algae) in Lac Bay and whether the urchins are having any impact on the spread of Ramicrusta. The thing is that not much os know about Ramicrusta so there are many wider implications that could come out of my study whether I get results or not. It is going to be an interesting project at least. I think that I was one of the few that didn't get my butt handed to me during the meeting. Ah well, it's just a part of the learning process.
I feel as though I should also comment on the fact that things are not as good as they should be. Before you jump to any conclusions, I am happy and I'm talking about the fact that the power completely shut down during class today, the guy who makes our food can't seem to prepare enough or produce enough variety, the front gate to the house that we use is broken, and the sink in one of the rooms fell out of the wall one night (proceeded to drip on the floor and flooded the room a bit). It seems like the program and house was not built to hold sixteen people (not including the four interns in the room above the house). Anyway, here is my update.
Now for some more introductions:
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| Ian |
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| Osha |
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| Dan |
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| Tom |
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Circle Island Tour
Today, we took a tour around the island today. I'm just going to let the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy the beauty!
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| The Devil's mouth |
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| Abandoned building |
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| The oil reserves that were on fire on Thursday |
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| The beautiful ocean facing Klein Bonaire from the north |
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| Lake on the north part of the island |
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| Flamingos! Bonairians love them |
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| Kralendijk with Klein Bonaire on the horizon |
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| The east part of the island |
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| The slave huts on the south part of the island. They look bigger than they are. |
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| The salt mounds on the south part of the island. Some of the pools are pink. Really pretty! |
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| Katie |
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Done with SCUBA Boot Camp!
We are finally done with SCUBA bootcamp, meaning that classes start on Monday. On Thursday we took the Emergency First Responder exam. I forgot how not straight forward that the exam could be. What sort of question is "Name one reason as to why you would hesitate to help someone." I believe that I passed, but it was not a happy test. Then, we talked about dive physiology, mainly the many scary things that can happen if you are not careful. Everyone here is being very smart about being safe, so I don't think that we will have a problem. We also finished up the rescue dive manual. In the afternoon, we did some of the rescue skills as well as point-line intercept survey. What this involves is laying out transect tape across the reef at a certain depth. A point intersect survey means going to each meter along the ten-meter long transect and recording the substrate under that point. That was the first pass along the tape. The second pass was a line transect. This is where we take a piece of pvc pipe 50 cm long with 10 cm increments and taking approximate measurements of everything underneath the tape (i.e. dead coral, Montastrea annularis, sand, etc). All this is the hopes of getting an approximate estimate of how the surface of the reef is made up. I looked a bit like an idiot while I was doing this surveying due to the fact that I was spinning and flailing around, not because I was having buoyancy issues, mind you, but for no reason I can think of. I asked around the dive and I was not the only one that felt completely uncool. I'm lucky that I didn't throw up. That would have been a very classy Quinn moment, and not that good a story, so I'm glad that I didn't.
First thing in the morning on Friday, we had a quiz on coral, algae, and disease. Considering that I had no idea what anything was the night before, it went pretty well. After that we had a lecture about research diving and the importance of what we are doing. We then went to the decompression chamber on the island, and we got to go inside. I can't imagine having to spend any sort of extended period of time there. I hope that I never have to go back. Though fairly roomy, it wouldn't take that much to make anyone claustrophobic. After lunch we took the DAN Oxygen provider test. I really wouldn't mind having all of these certifications. I like being trained to help if the need were to ever arise. I don't know why, but I find it exciting and satisfying. Then we did an AGRRA benthic survey. This was extremely complicated and involved multiple passes on a 10 m transect tape, looking for different things. I was completely upside down at one point during this exercise, and I remember thinking to myself "How did I get into this position?" and "I remember a time where I would not have been comfortable doing this." By my calculations, I now have 24 dives under my belt. I believe that we have done eleven dive since being here. That's not bad for two weeks work. My gear has yet to be dry since I have been here. In doing my dive log tonight, I have broken 1000 minutes underwater with 1046 minute, giving me over 17 hours of SCUBA. I'm pretty excited about this milestone. Hopefully I will have many more dives under my belt by the end of this. I had about the fourth highest level of experience, which was surprising to me, coming into this. It has been fun seeing everyone who hadn't done anything outside of the certification checkout dives, or those who just got certified here, get better and more confident as divers. I can definitely see a difference from the nervous crowding around the lead diver to now. Yay for improvement! Happy to celebrate the survival of SCUBA boot camp, but now the real work begins.
This is Gina. She is really cool. We have already talked about applying to internships for the summer together.
This is Andrew. He is the most amusing person I've ever met. He didn't want to come into the program being "that kid", but proceeded to log in four times during our online predeparture orientation meeting. He goes to CU Boulder, which is why I know so much about him.
In case you couldn't tell from the caption below the picture, this is Alex. She is from Oregon and goes to Oregon State. She is a beaver. She is such a sweet person.
Those are all of the people that I will introduce you to in this blog. More to come. Five down, ten to go.
First thing in the morning on Friday, we had a quiz on coral, algae, and disease. Considering that I had no idea what anything was the night before, it went pretty well. After that we had a lecture about research diving and the importance of what we are doing. We then went to the decompression chamber on the island, and we got to go inside. I can't imagine having to spend any sort of extended period of time there. I hope that I never have to go back. Though fairly roomy, it wouldn't take that much to make anyone claustrophobic. After lunch we took the DAN Oxygen provider test. I really wouldn't mind having all of these certifications. I like being trained to help if the need were to ever arise. I don't know why, but I find it exciting and satisfying. Then we did an AGRRA benthic survey. This was extremely complicated and involved multiple passes on a 10 m transect tape, looking for different things. I was completely upside down at one point during this exercise, and I remember thinking to myself "How did I get into this position?" and "I remember a time where I would not have been comfortable doing this." By my calculations, I now have 24 dives under my belt. I believe that we have done eleven dive since being here. That's not bad for two weeks work. My gear has yet to be dry since I have been here. In doing my dive log tonight, I have broken 1000 minutes underwater with 1046 minute, giving me over 17 hours of SCUBA. I'm pretty excited about this milestone. Hopefully I will have many more dives under my belt by the end of this. I had about the fourth highest level of experience, which was surprising to me, coming into this. It has been fun seeing everyone who hadn't done anything outside of the certification checkout dives, or those who just got certified here, get better and more confident as divers. I can definitely see a difference from the nervous crowding around the lead diver to now. Yay for improvement! Happy to celebrate the survival of SCUBA boot camp, but now the real work begins.
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| Gina, really excited about getting her picture taken |
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| Andrew |
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| Alex |
Those are all of the people that I will introduce you to in this blog. More to come. Five down, ten to go.
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