Break

 Last Tuesday, Sunrise:

My bag was packed, and I was getting on board my Turks and Caicos Air flight to Providenciales, the most developed island in the chain. The whole group was going on a field trip for two days. We all were going to stay in the comfort inn, have our meals taken care of, and do field trip type things. Sounded good to me. I threw in a map so island names that I throw out actually mean something, cause I mean I would be too lazy to look this stuff up if I was reading someone elses blog.

So, we got to the international airport on Providenciales. Keep in mind this is after being on a tiny island for many weeks. When I had first gotten into Provo, straight from Cali, my first thoughts were something along the lines of: wow this place is really ghetto. Upon arriving there again, it just seemed like Las Vegas. In terms of infrastructure really, all the islands are beautiful, but using a shower, and sitting on a couch, for the first time since September 5th, was amazing. Comfort inn felt so nice. After we checked in there, we went to do some interviews for a tourism assessment project we are working on. We went to a local shopping center, where I had some real ice cream, and enjoyed actual organized shops (with air conditioning!). In the afternoon, we took a tour of Veranda, an all inclusive resort situated on Grace Bay, the popular white sand beach that stretched across most of the north side of the island. The resort was very, very nice. It was also neighboring Beaches resort, where me and seven other guys were planning on staying for break, which looked like it would be even nicer. In the evening, after the "field trip" portion of the day ended, some of us went over to the Seven Stars resort, and chilled at their beach bar. We met some great people there,  Sleeping in a real bed, with air conditioning, and no mosquito net, felt SO good that night.

Grace Bay

The next day we were up at sunrise again, eating a quick breakfast and then jumping on a ferry. We rode the ferry from Providenciales, past the group of small cays, to North Caicos. We stopped at a couple sites of interest there, the most notable was the community farm outside the town of Kew. North is really the only island that anything can be grown on, so they had greenhouses and fields of all sorts of crops.

Banana Trees on North Caicos

We drove across this causeway over to Middle Caicos next, where we stopped to go spelunking. There is a fairly extensive cave systems on this island, it was hard to take pictures, but in the one below you can see a group of people by the entrance, to give some scale. The passages go in far enough that it is dead black if you turn your lights off, and there are some submerged parts and some really big caverns.

Conch Bar Caves, Middle Caicos

After the caves, we went to the north shore for lunch, which we had at my new favorite beach in the world. The beach is at the base of a cliff, which forms a huge overhang/cave that provided plenty of shade to eat and sit in. The beach was great white sand, with a reef break further out in the water which made for great bodysurfing. I missed that about California beaches, we rarely get waves on South, unless there is a significant storm. Here at this beach on Middle, the waves were great. There was also this small spit of sand that lead out to this cluster of rocks, where there were pools of water big enough to sit in. It was very relaxing, like a hot tub except you are sharing the space with some chitons and snails and little fish. It was a great afternoon. We had the bus and ferry ride back, and that was the day.

The cliff overlooking the beach on Middle Caicos

The next morning, everyone checked out of comfort inn and headed to wherever they were spending break. A couple people went back to the states, a couple people went to the Dominican Republic, a couple people went to Grand Turk, but the majority of us stayed on Providenciales. Me and seven other guys were picked up by a van and driven to Beaches Resort, where we were greeted with cold towels before we checked in. This proved to be one of the best life decisions I have ever made. Because it was the offseason, and we had four guys to a room, we got a decent rate. They definitely lost money on us. Beaches is an all inclusive resort, so all the food and drinks you can consume are just served to you. Eight college males, fresh from a tiny island, could not be better suited to exploit this deal. Not only that, but diving with them was also included, which we also took advantage of. The resort was huge, I actually didn't get to see all of it in the time I was there. By the numbers, Beaches has: 16 restaurants, 12 bars, 3 of them swim up, 5 large pools, a waterpark and a club. They let you take out sailboats and kayaks and do all sorts of water activites. Forget disneyland, Beaches on Provo is the happiest place on earth. The four days I spent there were amazing, we lived like kings, and we appreciated it so much coming from South. I met four resort staff and a taxi driver who were from South actually. It is kind of a good life move I guess, if you grow up on South, to go and work on Provo. Long story short, Beaches was ridiculous. Oh and in a chance meeting on my last full day there, I ran into the parents of this girl who lived right across the hall from me in santa clara last year, and I had already met the mother before. We were on the same dive boat together. Cliche, but its a small world.

One of pools at Beaches. Over on the italian village side.

 Monday morning we flew back into South Caicos to start up the second half of the semester. I've done a few exciting things since then. Got all artistic in the gym, we decided the white walls were too boring. I'll get some pictures of our work up later. Went on a great snorkel this morning, up at the mangroves by the old coast guard station at the tip of the island. Mangroves are really really cool by the way. The visibility was kinda bad but that made the snorkel really interesting, just peering through the tangle of prop roots into the somewhat murky water, at the baby barracuda and needlefish and all sorts of juvenile reef fish that use the mangroves as a nursery. At one point I ended up turning my head and there being a huge barracuda literally two feet away from my face. One of the interns got stabbed himself on a lionfish. My biggest question of the day is this: You have this abbandoned coast guard station, that no one ever goes to, but why is there is one wing without windows that is locked down and has the air conditioner always running? With the price of electricity here, that is odd by itself, but in such a remote location? I dunno... I'm really curious as to what is in there.

All-In-One GTL Spot

The lack of tumbleweeds are really the only thing that distinguishes this town that I live in from the wild west. The streets have random crabs, feral dogs, and wild horses walking around though. The buildings have seen better days, and by that I mean most of them got pretty damaged in the 2008 hurricane and a lot of them haven't been repaired. So there are a lot of boarded up windows and such. The shops and bars are just very reminiscent of an old west town. There really is no government present here on the island, there are about four police officers that don't really do anything. Violence isn't a huge problem here, but there have been a couple bar fights since I have been here, people pretty much just deal with their own problems. If we are trying to find someone in town, we basically just wander the streets and check the bars until we find them. I don't use a cell phone or carry anything but cash really. Shops are open at very irregular hours, but if we can generally just ask whoever runs the store to come open it up if we need something and it isn't open for some reason.

Our "gym" is a drained swimming pool. It is built on the side of the island and has an amazing view of the ocean. The pullup bar is a tree branch, and for everything else all we really have to use are cinder blocks and tires. This is probably the best place I have ever worked out at though, I will miss this for sure. Besides, as the post title says, it makes GTL super easy because I do all three at the same place. Gym pictures:

Friday night we went camping at long beach. We took vans as far as we could on the one road that runs up that part of the island and then walked down the hills to the beach. The spot where we parked the van was actually not very far away from the highest point on the island, so I went up there and took a 360 video, and threw it up on youtube, take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzHz7FuwZZc


 I got some good pictures there too, and then went down to the beach to help with the campsite. Almost everyone from the program went camping, so there were a good amount of tents on the beach. Me and some friends pitched ours at the end of the line and made a secondary fire pit. We ate dinner on the beach, watched the sun set from high point, and then chilled at our fire pit. By this point, some members of the group were having a rougher time then others, the bugs were pretty bad, there were lots of sand flies and mosquitoes of course. The beautiful white sand got everywhere too, an inevitability of beach camping. I changed into jeans and a long sleeved, lightweight shirt once the sun went down and ended up being very comfortable. The temperature was wonderful the whole night actually. The fire helped a lot with the bugs, and we had a great time just chilling there, listening to good music, talking, and watching the stars, such a good view of the stars. On the horizon we could see a patch of light coming from Grand Turk, an island too far away to see during the day, it being a good 30 miles away. I feel asleep outside by the fire, but sought shelter in my tent once it died down, the bugs were rather vicious. I have around 10 sand fly bites on every square inch of my feet, but that's just an estimate. I woke up and watched the sun rise the next morning, and it was really peaceful. Then it got hot.

I was in the last van out of the beach, so I got back to the center just in time to participate in our weekly site cleanup that we have on saturdays. I was not looking forward to it at all, seeing as I really didn't sleep that much and was covered in sand and bug bites. Then I found out that my room was on waterfront duty, and my day got so much better. I helped one of the interns clean the zodiac, one of our boats with bouncy rubber sides. We keep it anchored away from the dock so people dont mess with it. It was basically go grab my mask, then swim out there and hold my breath while I scrub the bottom of the boat, and it was a lot of fun actually. The water was super refreshing, just what I needed, and I felt awake enough to go on a snorkel when I finished. We took a boat out to the far side of long cay and drifted in with the tide, swimming around it and back through shark alley, and getting back on the boat there. On the way we saw a lot of really cool things, including this one little patch that was probably the most intense square foot of reef I have seen. It was a patch of bladed fire coral, with a long spined sea urchin inside, all surround by fire sponge, with a spotted moray eel in residence inside it all. The best was the eagle rays. I'm used to seeing them, one or three at a time, and they are still amazing and worth following as long as possible. But yesterday I found myself swimming with a group of TWENTY spotted eagle rays. So crazy. There were also big schools of jacks and other fish, the tide coming in must have been very nutrient rich because everything was out feeding. It was a great snorkel.

Stayed in and watched the Giants game with a Phillies fan from the room next to me before we joined everyone out at the bars last night, since american baseball doesnt get played much here, and by much I mean at all. Go Giants though! Figured I would make this a long post since I probably won't be posting much until after I come back from break.

"Everythings groovy mon"

Just realized I haven't posted anything in a week. Well, let me hit up some highlights of this last week and throw up some pictures. So midterms were last friday, saturday, and monday. After that was finished, we moved on to the data analysis phase of our conch assessment project for Marine Ecology. In groups, we have to prepare a paper on our results, referencing a host of other scientific papers. I just finished my share of the literature summaries to pass around to the group. We are also starting a tourism assessment project for Environmental Policy that begins today, and we have a research proposal project and a lobster management proposal to do after we come back from break.

Sunday me and a couple friends swam out off one of the beaches to HDL and Dove Cay, where we explored the reef and the island on our own. It was a great time, its nice to not be rushed at a reef and be able to take all the time you want. There are a lot of interesting things that you can miss in a casual swim by. You could miss groups of freshly post-larval fish looking to settle on a patch of reef that are super small and transparent. You could miss a cleaning station, where all sorts of large fish like nassau groupers come and open their mouths and gills for little wrasses to come and eat little parasites and detritus off of them. All sorts of cool things hide under ledges and inside crevasses in the rocks. And then there are the big things. Like when five spotted eagle rays cruised by us, looking majestic as they glided through the water. The views above the water from the top of dove cay were great. It was cool to be able to look out at the surrounding coastlines and know what I would find under the water in spots all over.

We went hunting for lionfish on monday. A lionfish hunt involves scouring a reef for them and netting them and bringing them back for dissection. Lionfish are an invasive species here, originally from the indopacific, with no natural predators, an array of spines that deliver venomous sting, a wide range, and a large appetite. The more that are killed the better. We caught a lot and no one got stung. Not every day you get to go hunt venomous fish for class.

My pressure gauge broke on wednesday so I had to miss a dive, it was pretty unfortunate but I'll be able to get a replacement next week, since I'll be on the main island. Its pretty hard to be upset about things when you can go work out with a great ocean view, and then go jump in the ocean to wash off. Last night, I had a stingray wider than a bathtub swim right next to me when I was taking a sea bath.

Today we are visiting the only functional hotel and the two in development as part of our tourism assessment. Tonight we are going camping on long beach, I'm really looking forward to that. Then on tuesday we leave for Provo. We are going to some other bigger islands on a field trip for a couple days and ending up on Provo for our break to start. It actually made the most financial sense for me and a group of friends to stay friends to book a 5-star all inclusive resort for the rest of our break. Seriously. Its off season here so we got a great rate. Looking forward to that, using a real shower for the first time since leaving California will be awesome. Anyways here are some recent pictures of underwater fun we've been having here.




Brain Coral




Spotted Eagle Ray




I'm front left, yellow snorkel




Barracuda




Grunts chilling at Admirals Aquarium



Southern Stingray



Blue Chromas



Awesome picture of sea fans

Elkhorn coral

Yup, thats me.

Wide assortment of reef fishes

Lionfish

We've had some spectacular sunsets lately, even better than usual.

Last night after dinner



Someone got a picture of me watching the sun set over Middleton, night before last



Midterms

Tuesday, in the afternoon I was out laying more transects, in the sandy beds by Moxybush. We had to anchor the boat and walk it was so shallow. There I was, staring at the stunning light blue water barely covering the sand flats that surrounded me in all directions, when I saw some straight national geographic happenings. Me and my group got to watch as this huge school of bonefish cruised towards us, followed by shark fins breaking the surface of the water. The whole time we were doing our transects, we watched these lemon sharks preying on the fish, and at one point I had to lay a transect right into the party they had going on.

Wednesday we went diving in the morning, for the first time in a while because of the weather. It was amazing, I'm getting better at managing my air intake every time. We went to a dive site called east bay spur, where there was amazing coral heads and huge sponges. Kat took a bunch of pictures while we were down there, so I'll have scuba pictures to share soon. We saw lionfish, barracuda, and a spotted moray eel. In the afternoon I went hiking on my own. There is a lot to explore here despite the small size of the island. I hiked out to the middle of the salinas, these salt ponds that cover the center of the island. They are remnants of when salt production used to be the major industry here, but they have fallen into disuse. It was slow going because I had to travel along these rock walls that border the pools, it was basically a large scale maze with fun surprises like the walls being broken in places. I found some wild cows, and a flock of flamingos.

Yesterday was mostly a study day, although our conch assessment was interesting. We ended up way far south of the center, far outside the marine protected area and out of radio range to the base. Our boat motor was also having problems. Not only that, but at the site we stopped at the waves were pretty large, the boat was rocking and the current and winds were strong. There was also a storm on the horizon, no lightning though so we could stay out. We dove into the waves and took the depth. 4.7 meters, and the visibility was really bad, the worst I had seen so far. We still got the transect out and ran the assessment. It was a good experience with less than ideal conditions. The rest of the day I spent preparing for our Environmental Policy midterm we had this morning.

Today I've beening hanging out and preparing for our Resource Management midterm tomorrow morning. Oh and we have Marine Ecology midterm on monday morning.

Countin' Conch

We've started doing conch population assessments daily now. We take the boats out to randomly determined sites both inside and outside the local Marine Protected Area, run 30m of transect tape along the bottom on either side parallel to the boat, and then count the live and dead conch that are within 1.5m on each side of the tape, measure their size, shell lip thickness, and position on the transect. What is cool is that this data that we collect isn't just practice, or even just research to do our own thing, it goes straight to the DECR, the governmental organization responsible for managing fisheries and stock populations. Each group of 4-5 students only has to do 3 transects a day to get it all covered, so its not even that tedious.

A picture one of my friends took of me when I was on my way down to film this spotted eagle ray.

No shirt, no shoes, no problem!

So, I had my first experience with underwater media yesterday. I spent the morning studying since half the class was out taking their coral ID test. After lunch me and the rest of the people working on the coral reef film project jumped in one of the boats and laid anchor off HDL. I snorkeled with a weight belt, which was challenging but let me dive faster and get stable shots while I was underwater. I was just buoyant enough for the tip of my snorkel to be over the surface of the water when I hovered vertically at the surface. We got our one "acting" scene filmed and out of the way at first. It was basically me and a buddy swimming up to some coral, him reaching to touch it and me grabbing his hand away. One of my better performances. Our objective was to find damaged/bleached coral, or trash and other negative human impacts. Thankfully, we had to look hard and long to find things to film in that department. I was able to get some awesome shots of a wall of sea fans blowing in the current, and some huge staghorn coral formations. One of the first things we saw was this gorgeous spotted eagle ray. Its really unfortunate that I hadn't gotten used to the belt or the camera yet, but here is a link to a video I took of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVpcG_9JSqs

 I was using a red filter to get the ideal color at about 20 feet, which is where the eagle ray was, but it will look pretty red at the surface. Its shaky while I am diving and surfacing. Also saw one of these little guys that I hadn't seen before, a baby trunkfish.



After being out for about two hours we came back to the center where I rehydrated and then grabbed my dive slate and headed right back to HDL, where I took my Corals and invertebrates test. We actually saw a golden crinoid, it is an echinoderm that I haven't seen before, but it was on the test. Beautiful, fairly sure I messed up the scientific name though. Davidaster something or other. The test was over soon enough and I was back at the center for 4:20 snack. They actually put out afternoon snack for us at 4:20 every day. Everyone was in a great mood, it was finally the weekend. (Test was moved to Saturday, replacing a recreational dive, since weather messed up the schedule) Most of us hit up the south caicos nightlife after dinner. This isn't that big of a place and so there aren't many options for places to go out to, but I swung by a good selection of them last night. We swung by Roosters, the only pool hall on the island, then went to Chicken bar, which serves tasty fried chicken and fries from a window on the side. We visited the only hotel on the island, they give out free conch fritters and chicken wings towards the end of the night, and they have a pool. There is also the only club on the island: Bayside Ballers.

I'm just taking a pretty easy sunday now, uploading some pictures, doing some reading. Its the little things here that make the time special, just taking the time to enjoy them. Even doing my laundry earlier this afternoon was great. Just sitting off the dock with my feet in the cool water, with the hot tropical sun on my back and a light breeze on my face, washing clothes wasn't too bad at all. I'm getting way too used to this lifestyle, I love not having to shower, or wear anything but board shorts. Shirts are just very oppressive now. Also I'm probably not going to wear shoes when I get back home... just sayin.

Corals, all day, errday

The weather has been interesting since a couple tropical depressions were in the area, yesterday I woke up and our room was flooded and it was pouring rain, but by the afternoon it was bright and sunny, without wind, leaving a crystal sea with amazing visibility for an afternoon of snorkeling at HDL. I'm about to go film corals for a couple hours, then come back and grab some water and a snack, and then go back out and take a coral ID test. Been studing corals a lot so I don't really have a lot to post about or time to write, but here are some pictures from the past couple days, a snorkel at admirals aquarium on and the sunset while I was taking a sea bath last night.