My favorite day of the week...

Today is Sunday! The day we wait for every week....ahhhh!! After 6 days of classes and community work, this is our only day off to explore and relax on the beach. Today we are *especially* in need of some r&r after a jam-packed last few days.

Friday morning started out with a boat trip to Long cay (pronounced key) where we hunted for Iguana's and Curly Tail Lizards to get an idea of their populations. They are being re-introduced to this cay after being hunted by feral cats on the island. We anchored the boat about 50 ft offshore and waded onto the land through the glassy turquoise water. Its times like this when I still have to remind myself that I am actually in CLASS. Any who...the Iguana's were so big and they were everywhere! After bushwhacking walking into countless (terrifyingly huge) spider webs we were off to take our last identification quiz on coral species.

After classes were over, we packed up and headed out for a camping trip at Bell Sound on the east side of the island. It was a clear night, perfect for some stargazing! I gave a little constellation tour around the fire...haha finally a use for my random knowledge of astronomy! For the rest of the night, we sat around the fire singing with an acoustic guitar, eating smores, and telling riddles all with the constant sound of waves crashing a few meters away.






We woke up to a beautiful beach sunrise at 6AM before driving back to the center...we have diving and snorkeling trips on Saturday morning. This Saturday, the swells were getting pretty high so we went to a place called "Admirals Aquarium". It is a more shallow area with tons of coral and hundreds of beautiful fish! I was looking at a school of fish when all of a sudden my snorkel buddy started yelling my name. I looked the other way and two *huge* spotted eagle rays were passing about 2-3 meters away! We see them a lot here but that was the closest I had gotten to one so far. I think they are probably the most beautiful animal I have ever seen.


Every Saturday afternoon we have community outreach at the center. Tons of local kids come to the school for games, crafts, and swimming lessons while aldults can come in for computer or English lessons. All of us sign up each week for a certain activity (there are also beach clean-up and invasive tree removal groups) to do during community outreach. Over the last few weeks, I have been teaching English to local Dominican and Hatian people. I never realized how confusing the English language is! Yesterday I taught the alphabet..."alright everyone, you now understand that it makes perfect sense for ph to sound like f, and the letter Y to sound like an E, I, or U...but is not considered a vowel." Yep, totally makes sense.

After our massive weekly Saturday clean-up of the center, we eat dinner and head out on the town! There is a great outside area at a place called Darells to play cards and order fries and cracked conch (well not the conch for me), or head over to Chicken bar where there will always be locals wanting to play dominoes in a gazebo with red and blue colored light bulbs. We usually finish the night dancing at the club called "Bay$ide Baller$". They try to lure us in by playing American music, including "Do you believe in life after love" or "the electric slide". We always ask them to play local music, but the DJ insists on playing Rhianna and Bruno mars on repeat...oh well!


Which brings us to today, Sunday. YESSS!!!! The only day we can sleep in (as if the rooster and church bells don't wake us up at 8 anyway) and make our own plans for the day. Mine usually include laying out in the sun and doing my laundry in an old tidy cats litter bucket...with salt water.

I think that is enough for now...yes? I need to get out and enjoy my day off!

Hello from the Big South!

I'm here!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are many excuses I could offer for why I am just now (three weeks into my Turks and Caicos adventure) starting to write a blog. I could go on and on explaining my procrastination, but the only thing you need to know is that each of my excuses involve the very experiences I have had which make this blog necessary in the first place! SO please forgive me for not making this blog sooner, but I was too busy getting material to actually write it!

Alright, where to begin? Lets NOT start at the beginning…that would be overwhelming for me to write, and you to read. Lets start with an average day (as if any of them were average) at the School For Field Studies Marine Resource Management center in South Caicos…*initiating dream-like sequence*

I wake up in the morning to a rooster crowing. Looking up into my mosquito net, which covers my top-bunk bed, I wonder if I have actually slept past 6:30 today? Nope! My already sand-stained (was white when I came) watch says 6:10…but I get up anyway, that rooster will keep crowing until at least noon. I brush my teeth and attempt to comb my salty hair before walking outside into the slightly cool morning air. The sun has just come up and the light gives everything a warm orange glow. I can hear the waves lapping up on the dock below our school center as I look out onto the ocean surrounding me.

The breakfast bell (a hanging scuba tank hit with a wrench) rings at 7AM, giving us an hour before our first class starts at 8. We have 4 hour-long blocks of class each morning so that we will only be in the classroom for the cooler part of the day. It still gets pretty hot by the last one, but bearable since we have open doors and windows which catch some of the cool sea breeze.

We eat lunch at 12:30 every day, heading out afterwards for an “ID session” by boat to one of our snorkeling destinations. The ID sessions are to help us memorize the scientific names of many, MANY species of seaweed, coral, and reef fishes. Like, that blue fish from Finding Nemos name is not even close to Dori. Its a Blue tang, also known as Acanthurius coerules. Here are some of my other favorites…

French Grunts, Haemulon flavolineatum Stiped Parrotfish, Scarus iseri

OH! And by the way, I should mention that none of these pictures would be possible if it weren’t for the fantastic photography skills of my dear friend, Laura Stone. My “underwater” camera broke after only one week, so I have sadly been camera-less since then.

The afternoon usually winds down with a little group yoga sesh, jog around town, sea glass hunting at the jetty, or playing volleyball with some of the locals at our court next to the center. I try to get in as much adventuring as possible before its time to sit and watch the (always beautiful) sunset over the ocean.

After dinner at 6:30, there is time for us to study and read for class before bed…yeah sure! How can we be expected to study when there is an activity night event like Dominican dance lessons, night snorkeling, outdoor movies, or hide and seek (sardines style). If all else fails, we “waste” time staring into the incredibly bright stars and planets that come out every night.
*End dream-like sequence*

I promise to write about some of the more specific adventures I have been/will have here on South Caicos, but I want to give you all some idea of the life I have here day to day. I can hardly believe that the things I described above are becoming my routine. I feel incredibly lucky to be here and I pinch myself every time I stare into the turquoise water that surrounds what has now become my home.

Goodbye for now and many more posts to come!

~Dani