My last day of hunting

It has been a long 12 days since I posted my last blog! After many, many hours spent in the shallow ocean banks of Turks and Caicos I have reached my last day of lionfish hunting for directed research. SO SAD! It has been an exhausting few weeks but also completely worth it. After today, we will have all of next week to analyze the data we have gotten in order to write our final paper of the semester. Hopefully I will have something cool to report about our findings in my next post! (here we are being very intense-serious huntresses) Our search for lionfish has taken us all over the island. Our hunt in the mangroves was in shallow waters about 1-3 feet deep. Many of these shallow waters are a breeding ground for upside-down jellyfish (casseopia sp.)...If you think this picture is bad, the location we searched yesterday had about 10 times more jellies in about 1 1/2 feet of water!! I have never been more afraid in the water...it was a MIRACLE that no one got stung because there had to be thousands of them in that tiny bay. YIKES!!!

We have also hunted in 6-7 meter deep water, free diving under huge coral structures to look for lionfish hiding under ledges and in crevices. You get pretty good at holding your breath when you have to swim down 30ft and still have enough time to carefully catch a fish from under a ledge!

We swim for miles along huge expanses of seagrass and soft coral sea fans and seen the strangest and most beautiful marine life along the way. I still cant believe that I swim with turtles, spotted eagle rays, and hundreds of multi-colored parrotfish every day! Having to search the coral so meticulously has led us to see more lobsters, octopi, and eels than I had ever noticed on a regular snorkel. Even the lionfish we are out there hunting is one of the most amazing fish I have ever seen! Here is the boat we use to go hunting...a view from the water at the beginning of out hunt at Tucker's Reef. It was my day to swim with the giant flag/buoy so that boats wont run us over : )

On some of our longer hunting days, we pack a lunch and leave the center for most of the day. We swim for an hour or two, eat lunch on the beach and take a nap in the sun before we head out for more hunting! Ahhh what a hard life. We come back to the center and PASS OUT from all the swimming until dinner. The other students all know the hunters are back when they see us sprawled out, basically unsoncious, next to the pool/any sunny concrete surface. Here my friend Anna and I are having lunch at Coastguard...it was pretty stormy that day but still a beautiful view!

Not only have I loved the hunting, I suprisingly really like dissecting part! Weird, right?? We measure the weight and lenght of each fish before we cut the stomach out and see whats inside! YUM! Lionfish are also good to eat and I have somehow become the fillet-er of our daily catch...haha yes, the vegan is filleting the fish she helped to kill. Our knife is reeeeeeaaallly dull and I have to use scissors to scale the fish and a scalple to help start the cutting but I'm getting pretty good! I'd love to try it at home with a real knife and see how I do! This is me about to dissect a tiny lionfish...yes my hair is really that color now. Below are all of our lionfish catches yesterday in russian-doll order!
Of course, as my time in South Caicos is quickly coming to an end, I am getting pretty nostalgic about my experience here. I think I could live here forever and be happy for the rest of my life and I am really scared to leave because I know in all likelihood, I wont be coming back to this island. Even if I do, it will be a VERY different place/experience...At the same time, I have never missed my family and friends so much!!! It is strange, having such intense feelings of being SO excited to come home and SO upset to leave. I don't know whether to be anxious or nervous about my (now) 13 days left on the island! So confusing...For now I guess I will just take every day as it comes and not let a moment of the next two weeks slip by!

Only a few more updates until I can tell you more IN PERSON. WEIRD!!!

Biolumiescence, cliff jumping, and MEGA yachts...where am I?

After our first week of directed research, we were ready for our Sunday off! It was a really great week though, we spent a LOT of time in the water hunting for lionfish and I caught my first one on Friday! We go out snorkeling with big nets and bouys which have our GPS units on them to track where we are searching for lion fish. As you can see below, the lionfish hunting outfit is extremelly fasionable. It insludes a rash guard, weight belt (to help keep you from floating up when using the nets), snorkel, fins, and mask. I will post more about hunting this week ...but for now this is a picture of my first catch, which I will be dissecting tomorrow!

Also on Friday was our first night snorkel. After sun set, we loaded on to the boat with our dive flash lights and wetsuits to go snorkeling in the dark! Driving the boat under the moonlight and stars, everyone was anxiously silent...with all of us in our wetsuits it felt like we were spys about to go attack some secret hide out. It was awesome! I would be lying if I said that I wasnt a little freaked at first, going into the black water. The place we went is a location we know pretty well, so being all disoriented in the dark was a strange feeling. After the initial scary-ness of not being to se ANYTHING that wasnt in your tiny flashlight space, it was really cool to see the reef in a different light. The turtles which we normally see swimming quickly away from us were not in the least bit disturbed by us being there. We could swim inches away from them and they didnt even seem to notice. There were also eels, crabs, and seastars which had come out from their usual hiding places during the day. My flashlight broke about 15 minutes into our hour long dive, but luckily I was by my snorkel buddy when it happened. It felt pretty scary to not have control over my own light, but also really cool. Probably the coolest part of the trip was the bioluminescence that was EVERYWHERE!! The best time to see bioluminescence is about a week after the new moon, which happened to be exactly when we went! We all turned off our flashlights and kicked around to make hundreds of tiny sparks of green in the water light up. It totally reminded me of Avatar!!! (or Fern Gully...haha)

Anyway, on to the fantastic day I just had! First off, we woke up to a GIANT SUPER MEGA YACHT in our backyard. Using Binoculars, we were able to see that the name of the boat was "Apoise". A quick Google search revealed that the yacht was built in 2006 and was sold at auction last year for 46 MILLION DOLLARS!!! The boat comes with its own crew and staff and is owned by a British billionaire named John Caudwell. Apparently it is the 56th biggest yacht in the world! Take a look for yourself... Yeah...note the fact that it is taller than the hills of Dove Cay right behind it!

After eating brunch, a bunch of us headed out to our favorite Sunday beach spot, East Bay. We were swimming and hanging out for a while when one of our island friends (an 18 year old kid from FL who has been living here for a while with his parents and brothers) invited us to walk to Shark Bay to go cliff jumping. Obviously, we couldn't refuse!!! It took about an hour to walk to there along the shore, but it was sooo worth it! Here we are climbing up the rocks to go jump...and here is me mid-flight!

All in all, we were walking, swimming, and playing in the sun for about 6 hours today and I am exhausted!! Going to try to get a good night sleep before we start on a very busy week of hunting and dissecting lionfish! I love you all and miss you very much. Thank you to everyone who is reading this blog...I really appreciate your curiosity into my very weird, very sunny life in Turks and Caicos...its as much for my friends and family as it is for my own personal "e-scrapbook" memories : )

T-minus 24 days until I am back in the states. Sheesh, time sure does fly!

I am a HUNTER!!!

That's right. Today is the first of many days to come for LIONFISH HUNTING!!! For the next two weeks I will be going into the reef for hours everyday to count and catch lionfish! Lionfish are invasive to Turks and Caicos, which means that they are not a natural species in this area. They can eat up to 20 fish in half an hour, and can clear out their entire reef-habitat-area in 5 weeks! Since they are not native, they also have no real predators to keep their populations in check. The numbers of lionfish keep growing every year, not only here but in the ENITRE Caribbean and even up the Atlantic coast. It is thought that the outbreak of lionfish started in the early 90's when a hurricane damaged an aquarium in southern Florida...the 7 lionfish that escaped to the ocean have become tens of thousands in a very short time.

For our project, not only will we be catching/killing the lionfish, we will also be recording GPS coordinates for where we find them and dissecting them to find out what fish they are eating on the reef. Soooo pretty much I will be a hunter by day and a dissecting scientist by night. Oh and we also EAT the lionfish! I know what you are thinking, what is Dani (werid-vegan-girl) doing eating lionfish?? Well, I'm probably not going to eat a lot of it but I will be fine testing out some evil, sustainably caught, killed-for-research fish every now and then... I will relay more info on our research as it comes up, but since we are just starting our first day, Im still not positive on what hunting will be like!

Alright, enough of this scienc-y talk. On to some sweet snorkeling pics! Last Saturday we went to one of our regular spots, but instead of snorkeling the whole time, we swam to and climbed up on top of Dove Cay to get an awesome view of the ocean. An Australian catamaran passed us while all 8 of us were up on the peak, they waved at us...probably very confused as to what 8 white kids were doing on a tiny cay in the middle of nowhere.

After looking down at the other side of the Cay (which we usually dont snorkel to) Laura and I decided to try to swim around once we got back into the water. It was amazing! There were huge waves crashing into the cliffs, making the water almost murky with teeny tiny bubbles. We also found a 5-6 foot nurse shark chilling on the bottom about 8 feet below us. Usually you catch a glimpse of a shark swimming by but this one was pretty settled on the bottom and we spent a good 10 minutes just diving down to it and staring. I know it might sound scary but they are such beautiful animals that you cant help but be fascinated instead of scared. The picture below is actually a tiger shark...some students were out on the boat a few days a go and saw it in the water. The boat followed the shark and one guy stuck a camera into the water to snap some pictures of it...this one came out AMAZING!)

On Tuesday night after WE FINISHED EXAMS (!!!!) there was a beach camping trip. We had a nice little campfire cookout with singing and games. Only a few people decided to spend the night so it ended up being me and my friends Keri and Meg with 3 staff members. If I didn't already notice a difference in the South Caicos camping experience, the mooing cow outside our tent at 3AM was proof. I am laughing about it now, but I have never been more afraid of a cow in my life. We fell back asleep with a very real fear of waking up via cow stepping on our face...

Every Wednesday night, a group of students goes to play volleyball against the Indian construction workers who are building one of the new resorts on South. Last night they invited us to come for a cookout! We brought some classic pasta salad and bbq grill items but were treated to some *awesome* Indian food. As always, they beat our team in volleyball, but they promised to teach us how to play cricket next week...as if we would be any better at it haha

Also on Wednesday was snorkeling...this week at our favorite spot near Long Cay. My friend Katie and I followed a group of 5 spotted eagle rays for a long ways until we realized that we had pretty much swam into the open ocean...oops! While we were making our way back to the boat a huge school of barracudas surrounded us. They are sooo scary and mean looking! I would rather run into a shark any day.

Well that is all for now, enjoy a couple more awesome pictures from Laura Stone and my friend Nina Yang...they are getting so food at taking pics underwater!!

These are my favorite types of coral, Elk horn (Acropora palmata) and Boulder brain coral (Colpophylia natans).

One of my favorite fish (and favorite of Lauras pics!!), the Four-eyed butterfly fish (Chaetodon capistratus).

A very non-serious post

Wow! Sorry, I just realized it has been over a week since my last post. I have just been so busy what with it being my LAST WEEK OF CLASSES

That’s right! As of yesterday, I am done attending lectures at the school…and no, this is not a late April fools day joke. But on THAT note, there were plenty of pranks played at the center yesterday.

We had to present a final group project about a marine species we were assigned to study. Our species was the Caribbean Spiny Lobster but we decided to doa fake power point presentation about the economic importance of SEA CUCUMBERS in south Caicos. We have a really awesome professor for the class and she was totally cool with us doing it. Sooo we gave our presentation about how sea cucumbers are a really great marine animal to use for fisheries...lots of great pics to show their potential for high class cuisine on the island. Also suggested that we build sea cucumber houses in the ocean (out of recycled Nalgenes and PVC pipe) to be able to harvest them. Everyone was clearly confused by the time we finally said April fools...the best part though was that our professor acted like she was really upset that we had wasted her class time and didnt take the assignment seriously. She walked out of the class and then came back in to give the double whammy April fools. Hahah...so great. Earlier in the morning, a few boys decided to put a rotting barracuda head (complete with maggots) into one of the girls' bathrooms before class started so that it had a good 3 hours to make their entire room smell like rotting fish. mmmmm! They got them back later by sneaking into their room and putting their mattresses on the roof of the snorkel shed. Since I am on a roll with this very non-serious post, I'll let you all in on the facebook group I decided to start last week. Its called "ONLY AT CMRS..." (CMRS is our school, the Center for Marine Resource Studies). Above is the silly picture I made in paint program...Basically I invited all the students to contribute to a list of all the weird things that you become accostomed to here in South Caicos. Here is a list of some of the best ones/ones that are not inside jokes: ONLY AT CMRS...

• you are told that the mold on your pillow isnt "active" mold.


• showers can be used as a form of currency.


• you are like a farm animal; you come to feed at the sound of a bell.


• ping pong skill level is a form of street cred.


• if a cell phone rings, its your professors.


• you know someone's water bottle as well as their face.


• your professor know how you like your eggs...


• 75% of your diet is comprised of rice and beans.


• your body is your own personal salina.


• YOU HAVE A CURFEW EVERY NIGHT.


• you can get a watch tan in winter.


• you have "snack time every day at 4:30


• you dont have to worry about being judged based on cleanliness or wearing the same shirt 3 days in one week...but you will be judged on your pronunciation of scientific names.


• rain is always welcome because it means its shower and laundry time.


• you can pee and kill cockroaches at the same time.

Alright soooo maybe that will give a little more insight into the life I have been living for (yikes!) over 2 months now. It is amazing what we have all learned to adjust to and live without, but I dont think we would have it any other way!

Final exams are on Monday and Tuesday, so I will have much more time to update in a few days! But like I said before, get ready for Dani the science girl to come out in full force! Not only will I be a serious scientist for the next month, I will also be a HUNTER OF LIONFISH!!! More to come on that but here is just a preview of how serious we are about research here...

Spring Break part deux

After our busy, scheduled days of field trips it was finally time for us to RELAX and enjoy the white sandy beaches of Provo. I have to say, it felt pretty weird to be a tourist in this country where we have been living for the last two months. Whenever we told someone about our study abroad here, they were shocked! The tourists didn't have any idea about how remote and tiny South Caicos was. We had to explain that, no, we dont have any shops, or restaurants, or desalinization plants...no no not at all. We have a few convenience stores, shipments of food only arrive via barge every 2 weeks for the entire island, and since the people here rely on rain catchment for water, our pool is full of salt water! The Provo natives who heard our story already knew about SFS and couldn't believe that we had to stay on South Caicos...one bar tender even gave my friend a bottle of drink-mixer-type-stuff and said, "here, you take this back with you. You're going to need it if you are going back to South." So ANYWAY, on to the fun part of break. We spent the majority of our day out on the beach swimming, playing volley ball, and walking along the turquoise shore to watch kite-boarders and wind-surfers. Everything on the island was *ridiculously* expensive, but even the grocery store items were cheaper than what we were used to on South. You know you're a little jaded when a $5 box of cheerios sounds like a good price (~$8-9 on south). Since there was not much we could do about the price of food, we made picnic lunches during the day and went out to dinner every night. It was crazy getting to decide when/where we wanted to eat our meals since for the last 8 weeks we have been on camp-style meal schedules. One night my friends Amanda, Molly, and I went out to a Sushi restaurant. Honestly, there was nothing special about the sushi, but I think it was the most delicious meal of my life. Mmmmmm wasabi and ginger never tasted so good!










On Sunday I pulled a total tourist move and went PARASAILING! It was sooo great. We could see the entire island of Provo and even parts of North/Middle Caicos from up there!
The reefs on TCI are so beautiful and part of the reason they exist is that right along the rim of the very shallow (all less than 20M, but mostly 3-4M) water is the drop off point where the island shelf breaks, dropping down something like 4,000ft to the ocean floor. From our view, we could see the crystal water slowly fade to dark turquoise and then instantly to a dark royal blue. It was like different shades of blue contour lines following around the island. Our favorite part was when the driver slowed down enough that we landed in the water until he sped up to lift us out again. We had a whole soundtrack of whoooaaaa's and ahhhhhh's and ohhhhh's as the chute blew from side to side. It was such an amazing experience. Totally worth it.














Of course, there was a lot of other spring break fun, including our Provo St. Patricks day celebration at the islands' only Irish pub, Danny Buoy's (no I did not misspell that) and the "Full moon party" at an outdoor patio/bar with the biggest sound system I have seen since arriving in TCI.

Well folks, returning from spring break only means that I am past the halfway point of my dream life in the Caribbean seas *siiiigh*. Next week is our last week of classes, which means MORE EXAMS. But then on to the thing we have all been waiting for...Directed Research Projects! I will explain more when the time comes but just be prepared because Im about to get reeeeal nerdy about reef fishes.

I love and miss you all!

Spring Break 2011!

So, the reason it had been so long since my last post is a really good one. WE WERE ON SPRING BREAK!!!

Last Tuesday morning, we all hopped on a little puddle jumper plane to the main tourist destination of Turks and Caicos...Providenciales aka PROVO!!!

We settled into our hotels and went out to survey locals and tourists about their opinions on eco-friendly tourism and how important they thought it was to keep the TCI waters as pristine and beautiful as they are now. It was interesting talking with the locals because, although they know thier livelihood (making money from the tourists) depends on saving the reefs and beaches, they admit to be very hesitant in creating new laws to protect them. Most locals knew about the new recycling program which started in Provo last fall, but didn't know where or how to recycle.

After the interviews, we toured an all-inclusive resort (which was AMAZING) so that we could ask about their energy/water use. The enitre island depends on de-salinization plants for their water and the only source of electricity in TCI is the monoploy diesle-fuled power company. It seems like there are small changes being made to some of the resorts to push a more "green" image but nothing major is happening as of now.

Here is a map of Turks and Caicos so that you will better understand my spring break travels...

On Wednesday we took a ferry to North Caicos to visit an old slave cotton plantation and the DECR (department of environmental and coastal resources) nursery. The plantation still had all of the original walls built by slaves 200+ years ago! It was a really beautiful tour but we went through it pretty quick because we were being EATEN ALIVE by mosquitos.

The nursery was also interesting...well, to us at least. But then again we are a bunch of nerds when it comes to anything field-studies-related...especially since all of the plants were labeled with their scientific names. Oooooooo!

After all 40 of us took a plane and a boat together, it was time for us all to travel on land together by packing in a big school bus to drive to Middle Caicos. It was only about an hour away from to plantation and we stopped for lunch at what I think was the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I think I said that in an earlier post, but this country just keeps one-upping itself!

We went body surfing and played on the rock formations before we had to (grudgingly) leave. But don't feel too bad because we were only leaving so that we could go spelunking!!!! There are some awesome sea caves in Middle Caicos and we learned all about different cave formations and bat species from our encyclopedia-of-a-tourguide. p.s. for anyone who watches Malcom in the Middle he reminded me *exactly* of Craig...that big guy who is in love with Lois : )

As our two jam-packed days of school-field-trip drew to a close we fell asleep in our beds dreaming of what our next 5 days of fun would have in store...but it is getting late and it will have to wait until the next post!

Much love from the big south!!!

~Dani

Another week in paradise

After finishing exams on Monday, there was definitely a more relaxed atmosphere at the center. No more late night cramming and study sessions made for some very happy students... : )

On Tuesday night we watched "The Cove" outside on a projection screen. We usually have movie night on Tuesday but this one was especially for our Marine Resource Management class. If you haven;t heard about "The Cove" you should really look it up or see the film! It is a horribly sad and terrifying documentary about killing dolphins in Japan. By the end, half of us were in tears and ALL of us were covered in bug bites. The mosquito's get really bad here at night...One day last week I was getting so fed up with all my bites (and so bored of studying) that i decided to circle them. I had OVER THIRTY. I was covered in circles for the next two days.

ANYway the next day, Wednesday, turned out to be quite eventful after a lazy Tuesday. After teaching our first grade class, we went to a place called "Coast Guard" for our snorkel sesh...It was low tide and there was a big sandbar in the middle of the bay which we swam to and took some awesome jumping pics!





We left Coast guard in two cars, one truck (driving ahead) and one big van (behind). Let me tell you right now that it was a mistake to choose the van...First of all I will just say that Coastguard is one of the farthest places you can drive to on the island and there are basically no paved roads outside of town.

We had driven for about 3 minutes when thump thump thummmmp...
we found ourselves with a flat tire. Having no phone or radio, and with the truck speeding away around corners and out of sight, we were stuck. We decided to walk to the High Point Hotel (note the sad faces as it was very far away) because we realized that there are usually a group of students who come to play volleyball there on Wednesday nights.





After walking for over an hour we finally made it!!! Only to fiiiind....no one. Our student director, Richard, went up to the hotel to call for backup and a van came to pick us up about a half hour later. Ahhh what an adventure.

My friend Nina took this picture at Coastguard. Doesn't it look like a postcard?!

So here we are on a Friday night, staying in (like we always do on Friday nights) playing ping pong after a *hilarious* talent show for activities night. My friend Kyle and I did an acoustic version of the Flaming Lips song "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots". Will put up the slightly embarrassing vid if someone posts it online...haha and yes we had dancing robots acting out the song in the background.