Where Reality is an Option

When I got home last Thursday, my parents gave me a t-shirt that says "Amherst: Where Reality is an Option." Although this is undoubtably appropriate to my home town, I can't help but think that it is even more appropriate to the amazing place I just left. I mean, how is a place where you can see 9 sharks in a single dive, pet a wild adult sea turtle, and swim with eagle rays real? A place where I got to dive twice a week and snorkel for class. I've been home for a week now, and it sort of feels like a dream. Did I really live in the Caribbean for three months? Me, Cassie from Amherst, Massachusetts who has lived in the same house my entire life?

Since my last post A LOT has happened. Possibly the most relevant of these events is the fact that I spilled an entire water bottle across my keyboard, and had no computer for about a week. Incredibly, it is actually marginally working again (although I have to keep it plugged in at all times). But Gmail is my favorite, because it magically saved my final paper.

So our papers were completed, our presentation done, and our brains turned completely to jelly. Another girl and I went to our final church service on South, we bought ice cream from various small stores for the last time, and we...rescued a kitten? Yes, in the grand tradition of the students of CMRS, we found a three-week-old abandoned kitten, fed it home-made kitten formula, and promptly hid it in a girl's room in a wash basin full of towels. The little guy did GREAT, and even got to go home with one of the girls on the program! Here he is:

SO ADORABLE

And very curious...obviously

But kitten adventures aside, is was a great last week. The staff thought up hilarious awards for all of us (I got the "At least she'll get a new Mac" award, haha), we watched lots of final slideshows and videos (lots of tears, obviously), and the funniest perfume ad of all time. No joke.

Yup, welcome to South Caicos. For the record, the salinas smell gross. Gross gross gross. But it was a wonderful ending to a wonderful program. I don't know why I'm still trying to describe it, because I'm never going to be able to, so here are Carl's videos instead!

Hooray for videos! Explaining the amazing world that is South Caicos much better than I ever could.

Well, now I'm home, and I'm going through severe reverse culture shock. Highways are HUGE people. And so are malls. What even is a mall, anyway? And why are there so many PEOPLE everywhere? It's very confusing. But as for how I feel about leaving the Center for Marine Resource Studies, once again I'm going to steal someone else's words, and have you all read Ben's beautiful blog post that really does speak for all of us:

http://www.fieldstudies.org/blog/?p=652

Yesterday I went to Boston for my orientation for working at the New England Aquarium, and I officially have the best summer job ever. Plus everyone I met was awesome. So the summer's looking good, even thought I don't actually start till June 18th! And tomorrow I'm going to New York to see NEWSIES. BEYOND EXCITED. My life is slowly but surely beginning to revolve around Massachusetts again, which is odd, but also sort of relaxing.

So that's it for now I guess, sorry the post wasn't very coherent or organized. But you try to sum up all your thoughts on the last three months when you still get confused as to where you are when you wake up in the morning!

"Is that your real hair?" - Sea Day and 90s Prom

I have to admit, I'm surprised we are alive after yesterday. Not only did we finish data collection on Friday (no small feat), we had the busiest Saturday of all time. But how can a day go badly if it starts out with petting a sea turtle? Answer: it can't. And yes I did pet a sea turtle on my dive, it was a hawksbill.

Photographic evidence by my lovely roommate Juli

Yesterday afternoon we had Sea Day at the center, and spent most of the morning prepping. Organisms were collected, touch tanks set up, signs made, and costumes donned (no joke) in preparation for the invasion of children and their families coming to learn about the ocean. I was stationed at the mangrove station, obviously, and we had a baby mangrove tree, a sea cucumber, a sea biscuit, a sea urchin, a clam, and my favorite: upside-down jellyfish! The kids loved it, and got a huge kick out of learning about all the animals. We also had a live turtle, and a SCUBA demonstration!

Mangrove team, looking super psyched

My babies! So beautiful!

Learning all about seagrass ecosystems

Quality photo ops all around

So Sea Day was a great success, and of course culminated in cake. I believe everything in life should involve an elaborately decorated cake, it is a positive addition to any gathering. And yes, a fair amount of the girls asked me if my hair was real, and were then extremely doubtful when I said that it was! They pulled on it to make sure. 

Then in the evening we prepared for...90s Prom! This is not a joke. Throughout the semester we've had this joke Sigma Turks frat thing going, and have had many "pledge events." This one was obviously the best. We drew dates out of a hat, had to ask them creatively, and then come up with matching 90s costumes. Given our limited supplies, this was actually one of the most impressive groups of costumes I have ever seen. My wonderful data Aurora and I were Beanie Babies, and our costumes were pretty sweet. We also had Powerpuff Girls, green slime, Friends, Mary-Kate and Ashley, and lots of others. Prom was a major success, but now we are all exhausted. 

You bet there are poems inside those tags

The whole crew: can you guess who everybody is?

So after a weekend full of fun, we're going to have to buckle down to work on our final presentations and papers. I have to start wading through mountains of numbers related to jellyfish, and trying to figure out if those numbers actually mean anything at all. And then write a paper about it. And make a presentation about it. And give said presentation. And relish my last week and a half in this amazing place by snorkeling and diving whenever possible. And hopefully sleep somewhere in there too. Yeah, we'll see how that goes...

Three Weeks and Near Death Experiences

I was almost eaten by a shark yesterday. Well, not really, I'll explain later, I promise. But first...yesterday marked exactly three weeks until I leave South Caicos! Which is crazy. On the one hand, that seems like forever from now. On the other hand, it seems like tomorrow. I have come to the conclusion that time follows entirely different rules down here.

We are halfway through data collection for DR (Directed Research, in case I didn't tell you before), and my project is actually shaping up pretty well. Lots of jellyfish to measure! But thankfully not as many as at that first site. Otherwise I'm pretty sure my group would have (understandably) rebelled. Yesterday we collected muck to plant mangrove seedlings...which are not doing well. Apparently baby mangroves do not like being ripped up and then planted in five gallon buckets. Who knew? But don't worry guys, it's for SCIENCE. This afternoon we're heading out to an old US Coast Guard station, one of the most beautiful spots on the island, to get more data. That is, providing the road isn't washed out from the rain storm yesterday!

But about that shark. If you have ever met me, you will know that I have an overactive imagination, and that it sometimes gets me into trouble. Yesterday was one of those times. We were on one of our lionfish hunts yesterday afternoon, with six students and five staff (which is a lot of people, in case you were wondering). We dove The Grotto, which is a fantastic site along the wall, so you're almost guaranteed to see at least one reef shark. We saw two, plus a bunch of eagle rays, throughout our dive, and we caught six lionfish, so we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. We'd been down there for about 40 minutes, and a couple people were getting low on air, so we started ascending to make our safety stop. That's when the shark came back. In case you forgot what a six-foot-long reef shark looks like, here is a picture (courtesy of the inter-webs):

Your neighborhood-friendly reef shark

So we were all just floating there in the water, between 15 and 20 feet down, and this reef shark came and started sort of circling us. It would swim towards us a little bit, then swim away, then come back, then swim around us, then swim away, and so on. It never went out of sight though. I wish I could tell you that I was floating there thinking something along the lines of "Wow look at that amazing creature, it's so majestic and beautiful" or even something intense like "It's the shark or me this time" (bonus points if you get that reference). But no. I was floating there like "OH MY GOSH LOOK AT THAT SHARK WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" and imagining all the shark attack stories I had ever heard of (thanks a lot, Soul Surfer). Turns out the shark was actually interested in our little buoy, not us, but it was still pretty insane when the thing took off towards the surface ready to attack what it thought was a fish. It realized it wasn't a fish at the last minute, and dove back down and swam away (for real that time). Thankfully for my blood pressure, we finished our safety stop at about this point. 

So just to reiterate, everyone was totally fine, and I was the only one who was even nervous. Apparently my eyes were bugging out of my head. And we weren't actually in any danger. The shark didn't really care about what we were doing at all. I am an idiot. 

...I still sort of feel like I cheated death though. I do not plan on doing that again.

Happy Easter!

Creative title, I know. But it is Easter, after all!

This morning, after I finished helping to make brunch, three other girls and I walked over the local Baptist church for their Easter service (I had the rest of my kitchen crew put aside some food for us for later, since we would be missing brunch!). It was so wonderful. Everyone was so glad to see us, and asked us where we were from, and everyone was wishing everyone else a very happy Easter. All of the kids (and adults, for that matter) were in their Easter best, with the little girls practically wearing princess dresses. We felt a little underdressed in our sundresses and salt-water-washed hair! One of the little boys gave us hymnals and Bibles, and the pastor came over to say hi and welcome us to the service.

The service itself was great. Two hours, but it didn't feel that long at all. We sang and sang and sang, which I obviously loved. It being Easter Sunday, we obviously sang Christ Our Lord is Risen Today, Crown Him with Many Crowns, and other standards. A group of women even sang a song for everyone in Creole! As I was sitting in my seat listening, I suddenly remembered a story that an old choir director once told me. When she was in college she had travelled with the college chorale to Africa to sing with a local choir there. No one spoke the other's language, but soon they started teaching each other songs and dances, and only remembered they couldn't speak to each other when it was time to say goodbye. Obviously the situation here isn't quite so extreme, as everyone speaks English and we are here for a much longer period of time, but I think it still applies. We may not understand each other's cultures perfectly, but we can all sing those songs on Easter Sunday. Oh, and the sermon was nice too!

So now that I've finished being sappy about music and singing, a little update on what's going on at the center: we finished finals! Thank goodness! So classroom time is over, and Directed Research data collection has begun. If you think this means that we have more free time, you would be completely wrong. The opposite is true! We're all running around like crazy people, between collecting data for our own projects and helping with other projects, such as turtling and sharking. For my project I'm looking at the presence of the upside down jellyfish around mangroves and how that relates to nutrient levels and the health of the ecosystem. My group of four went out on Friday to one of our sites, which happens to be near the dump, to collect data. It was disgusting. Muck everywhere, and jellyfish literally everywhere you wanted to step! My poor group members had to help me measure them, and we measured over 700! Luckily that is the site with the most, so other days shouldn't be as insane.

I also got to help out one of the other groups with a lionfish hunt! Lionfish are a Pacific fish that are invasive to this area, so one of the other projects is looking at encouraging the creation of a lionfish fishery to get rid of them. So a few of us went diving with nets to catch them. While I personally did not catch any, the group caught five, and it was amazingly fun. And I'll get to help out with that for the rest of data collection time! But tomorrow it's back to the mangroves.

Yesterday we had our recreational dives, and since we are all advanced open water certified now, we could go to a site called The Grotto. Definitely my favorite dive (after the whale, obviously!). We dove along the wall, and saw two sharks, a turtle, eagle rays, and a bunch of queen angelfish. But that wasn't even really the best part. The coral formations at this site are incredible, creating cool formations and passages to swim around. I don't think I've ever felt so thoroughly like I was in another world, it was amazing. Luckily it's a favorite lionfish hunt site!

It's back to work tomorrow, and full speed for the next two weeks, so I'll need to get some sleep tonight! Have a wonderful Easter everyone, and go listen to Godspell or something.

Turtles, Goodbye Parties, and AOW, Oh My!

So I'm getting progressively worse at blogging as this semester goes on. I would apologize, but that implies that I'm going to fix the problem...which is unlikely. We're just so busy! All the time! So you guys will just have to wait and be content stalking the Facebook pictures I get tagged in.

All of that boring stuff aside, I got to go TURTLING last Saturday night! This is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of us went for a night snorkel to catch turtles with our Resource Management professor and one of the interns. This is easier said than done: you only get one chance to catch a turtle. They're pretty sleepy at night, so if you sneak up on them you can pretty much just pick them up as they float lazily along the bottom. If, however, they figure out that you are trying to catch them (which is what happened to me the first couple of times), they will dart away with surprising speed. Turtles are tricky little buggers. However, my buddy and I were very successful and each managed to catch a turtle. He caught a mid sized green who was swimming along, and I pulled a sleeping hawksbill from under a rock. So my catch was not very impressive, but I was pretty psyched all the same. In total we got four turtles, two of each species, including one HUGE green. Two were tagged already, so we took down their numbers and measurements, and two were not tagged. So they got little metal things punched into them (it doesn't hurt them, don't worry!) and were measured as well. In a week or so the turtle research project will start in ernest, and more data will be collected, but for now we're just trying to get some basic stuff. And, since I know this is what you guys really want to see, here are some turtle pictures:

THIS IS MY TURTLE. I CAUGHT HIM. WE ARE FRIENDS.

Getting measured

For some reason I can't rotate this, but here's Charlie with his giant turtle

Yesterday was our last day in the local schools, and since they were having a party anyway before their two week break for Easter (so unfair), we thought we'd join them. So we brought cupcakes and face paint and it was general pandemonium. You may remember by description of the behavior of these kids, and while they are hilarious and I love them they are also completely insane. Telling them to not push each other in the face paint line was like telling fish to climb trees. But they are actually wonderful, and were so happy to see us, and were endlessly fascinated by our cameras.

Two of my girls from the kindergarten

He only looks adorable and innocent...troublemaker level 1000

Aurora being a good sport and doing face paint

Another one of my girls, such a cutie

In addition to all of this, I've been getting Advanced Open Water certified! This means that I can dive deeper, longer, do drift dives, night dives, and all sorts of fun stuff. Plus it's another step along the way to becoming a Master Diver, which is sweet. We've done peak performance buoyancy, navigation, night, and drift, and just have a deep water dive left on Saturday. Pretty fun stuff. On our last dive we saw two HUGE southern stingrays. Like, as big as me huge. It was awesome. 

And on top of all of THAT we have like fifty final projects and finals and presentations and papers and basically my brain is going to explode. So this blog post is really just a glorified study break...sorry guys. Also I've decided that I'm going WWOOFing someday. Spring break next year anyone?

Home Again, Home Again

Back home on the Big South! Hooray! After a ridiculously cramped (but still very fun) ferry ride, we finally arrived back at our wonderful CMRS just in time for dinner on Monday. Luckily I wasn't on the boat that ran out of gas, they were a little late...

You would not believe how psyched we are to be back in the world of no TV, no freshwater showers, no air conditioning, and no grocery stores. Provo just started to feel exhausting and so over the top, South is a welcome change. And it really does feel like home! I probably got one of the best sleeps of my LIFE that first night back in my bunk. Seriously. I slept for 10.5 hours.

But Spring Break was wonderful, and a much needed break from school work. Papa Raker came down, bringing with him many fun birthday presents as well as biodegradable shampoo (YES!). We then proceeded to go swimming or snorkeling every single day and eat lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We found many fun and cheap places to eat, befriended all the gift shop owners, and even visited the famous Potcake Place! But the stars of the trip were the fish, obviously.

In front of one of a the hotels, about an hour walk from where we were staying, was a little snorkel park. I was skeptical at first, being rather spoiled by South, but it was great! Lots of parrotfish everywhere, which is always fun, and very curious yellow tailed snappers who followed us around everywhere. Since I got a camera with some underwater housing for my birthday (woohoo!), here are some (rather blurry) pictures:

Stoplight Parrotfish

Blue-striped grunt hanging out by some fan coral

Flounder! Can you see him? 

Grunt sitting on a plaque that's so nicely fixed up by TCReef

Southern Stingray! 

So lots of fun critters. Plus, we went on an actual official snorkel with Dive Provo, which was fabulous. I even saw a reef shark, which is always fun. So all in all a successful trip, and I only got slightly sunburned!

Civilization?

Yesterday we arrived in Provo, and all immediately walked around like deer in headlights. On the way down to South a month and a half ago, the Provo airport seemed tiny. But arriving in it yesterday, after flying out of the (safe) shack that is the South Caicos airport, we felt like we were in Disneyland. I don't think I have every been more fascinated by cars and buildings in my life.

We established ourselves in the Comfort Suites, which is a beautiful hotel that most importantly has AIR CONDITIONING and FRESH WATER SHOWERS. Those two things make you feel so clean and refreshed you have no idea. Also, we have a TV, which sort of feels like space technology. Yesterday afternoon we went to the grocery store across the street to check it out, and probably looked like we'd never seen one before. So in case I haven't made it clear enough, reverse culture shock is a very real thing people.

Today we set out for our field trip, and traveled by ferry to North Caicos, and then by yellow school bus over an almost completely washed out causeway to Middle Caicos and an amazing series of caves. And I love caves. Stalactites, stalagmites, and lots of bats. Some people got bat pee in the face (no joke), but luckily I was not one of them.

100-year-old graffiti

Lots 'o caves

So that was awesome. Then we boarded the bus again, and headed off to the Middle Caicos Co-op, where local artisans sell traditional crafts. Hand-woven baskets, hats, mats, as well as bowls made from conchs and seagrass jewelry were all on display. After purchasing our crafts, we got back on the bus and prepared to leave. But as we started up, one of the wheels went off the road and the bus got stuck! We thought we were going to tip over. So we all got out, and some of the store owners came out to help us push, and we got the bus back on the real road. After that little adventure, we were all ready for lunch and a break.

Which brings us to The Most Beautiful Beach in the World. I will not tell you where it is, because it is a secret and we all selfishly want to keep it that way. So we all sat down to the most scenic picnic lunch I have ever had. Since I have no hope of ever describing this place, here are some pics: 

Oh yeah. We can do this.

Did Disney come here when planning The Little Mermaid?

Waterfall created by waves

Giant picnic cave

Is this real life???

Who's having the best day ever? This kid.

Sadly, we eventually had to leave, so we climbed back aboard our bus and headed back across the causeway to North Caicos. On North our guide (who was brilliant, by the way), took us to the farm he works on. And there were goats! Obviously, I was super excited. Finally they tore us away from the goats, and moved us on to the greenhouse. Our guide is working on a project to reestablish a native pine tree, as well as cultivate many other native plants. Which is cooler than it sounds, I swear. 

Baby goat! I want to bring it home!

Poor pine tree, get well soon!

Pretty flower, no idea what it is

Tiny baby cactus

Finally we took the ferry back to Provo, napped along the way, and went out to dinner when we got back. We were all ready to fall in our beds, but surprise! Guest speaker! Actually it was really cool, and a guy came to talk to us about turtle conservation on South. He's going to come visit later in the semester, when he'll be able to give us his whole presentation and show us his documentary. 

But now we are going TO BED because we are falling over. Tomorrow we're interviewing tourists, visiting a conch farm (no joke), and finally starting SPRING BREAK!!!!! 

Long Time, No Post

Well I'm sure you're all sitting at your computers anxiously awaiting my next adventure...or you're, you know, off living your own lives, which I guess is cool too.

My only response to any questions about why I haven't been posting/what I've been up to is simply this: FINALS! Yes, finals. Of a sort. Our curriculum for the semester (the classroom portion of it at least) is divided into two case studies, and last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we had our finals for Case Study I. In case you were wondering, these were three hour long tests that turned my brain to jelly. We spent the whole week leading up to them figuratively locked in our own little study caves, trying not to be distracted by the ocean outside. Which was difficult.

Seriously. You try studying with this outside. 

Also, snorkeling followed by an intense game of Blokus is the best de-stress after tests ever. Now we're on to Case Study II, which focuses on marine protected areas. Did you know that there are over 6,000 MPAs in the world? Just a fun fact for you guys.

Yesterday we found out, by lottery, our Directed Research projects that we will be working on for the last month of the semester. Out of 36 students, I was number...36. Yup, dead last. So I got my last choice, which was Permaculture. Needless to say, I was not excited about spending the last month of my marine science program growing tomatoes in a greenhouse. But we all had similar feelings, and now the project is focusing on the status of mangrove ecosystems and the associated water quality. So actual science that has to do with the actual ocean! Hooray! Plus we get to help with lionfish hunts, turtle catching, and eagle ray surveys. So some real marine biology will get in there somewhere.

This weekend I went gecko hunting with a couple other people, which I swear is more fun than it sounds. We went out so some of the hurricane-demolished houses by one of the beaches (accompanied by one of the dogs, of course) at around 9 pm, and started turning over rocks and looking under things with flashlights. Personally I did not find one, but I did help catch the ones we did find, and I was very helpful in holding the headlamp while our resident nature photography Ryan took the actual pictures.

They're very small. Notice the expert lighting.

Today we got all our information about getting Advanced Open Water certified for SCUBA, and we'll start our course after spring break. Which is coming up in about a week! And Papa Raker is coming down for the five nights that we have off on Provo, so if you are in the area watch for two very pale snorkelers. 

Also, cross your fingers for no wind in TCI on Thursday night so we can go on our first night dive! 

P.S: Photos by Ryan, not me. Obviously. 

One Month(ish)-iversary

Exactly four weeks ago I arrived at the Center for Marine Resource Studies on South Caicos. WOW. On the one hand, I feel like there's no way a whole month has gone by. On the other hand, Colby/Home/the U.S. of A. seems almost like something I made up. Like, snow? What is that? What do you mean normal people don't snorkel around collecting conch for class? Doesn't everybody have random stray dogs follow them around everywhere? And what is this "mainland" that you speak of?

But seriously, this past month has been incredible. I'm finally getting to do what I've always been wanting and aiming to do, and I sort of don't know how to handle it. Like, what do you do when you finally get to do the things you've always dreamed about doing? Explode?

So just to recap, in the past week I have:
-SCUBA dived with a shark (it swam right under me aaah!!!)
-snorkeled with eagle rays
-had a bonfire/camp-out on a beach
-saw multiple shooting stars at said beach
-recorded data from a beach clean-up (much more fun than it sounds, I promise)
-bonded with people over my love of Singin' in the Rain and Bill and Ted
-gone to bed by 11 every night
-swam next to a southern stingray that was almost as big as I was
-listened to whales sing from under the water

Can we just look at that list for a second? I'm pretty sure I've at a "serious face" level of happiness most of the time. You know, when you're so happy that you've moved past the smiling stage and just sort of sit there in shock. For the record, the other things that have made me this happy are on a pretty short list.

That's not to say that there hasn't been some adjustment. Never really being inside, as trivial as it sounds, takes some getting used to. I love it, but it disoriented me for the first week or so. And I miss fresh veggies! Thankfully the food boat is coming from Miami tomorrow, because right now we are STRUGGLING with food diversity. Probably the biggest thing has been getting used to is being with the same people, all the time. Don't get me wrong, they are all fabulous, it's just sort of weird to realize that no one else will be cycling through. Ever. Not like at camp, where you're working/living with the same people but the campers switch every week: there is no change. And I actually really like it! I enjoy being in a community this small, where you really get to know people, and are forced to rely on each other. And I enjoy the consistency. It's calming somehow (which is probably good, since I'm so psyched about everything all the time!).

People keep saying that you change while you're abroad. The staff at the center say that we've all changed since the first day we got here. I'm not so sure. I mean, we've all clearly gotten more comfortable and gotten to know each other better, but I'm not sure if we've changed. I think I'm still me, I'm just me getting to finally live and study in the environment that I want to. But I guess you all will have to tell me if I'm different when I get home! Because I can barely even tell if I'm getting more freckles.

WHEW that was less news filled than normal. And so retrospective. Well, I promise I won't do THAT again until at least another month goes by! So never fear, my usual spazzy posts will be back soon, and you can go back to laughing at my enthusiasm for all things marine.

The whole group! Plus some of the dogs.

Puppy Adventures

I'm sure many of you are wondering what is up with this puppy I keep posting about on Facebook. Well lucky you, because here is the whole story! First, a little background:

In TCI there are a lot of stray/feral dogs. They are called "potcakes," and they are their own special breed of mutt. We see them all over the island, and there are four who hang out by the center and walk with us through town (which can sometimes be a problem, because they try to protect us from everyone we see!). Obviously the stray dogs lead to stray puppies, who either just grow up in the "wild" or are taken to a shelter and adopted by families outside of TCI.

On Saturday night one of the girls on my trip found a puppy. She came home and told us all about it, but we all figured no one would ever see it again. A couple people went back the next morning to look for her, and she was still there! They asked around, and determined no one owned her. After playing with her for about an hour, she "followed them home" (or at least, that's the story we told the center director!). Christened "Nugget," the 6-8 week old puppy took up residence outside our front gate, with the strict rule that she would not be allowed inside. Here she is:

Unsurprisingly, we all started spending all of our time on the front steps so we could play with Nugget. Because she is the cutest puppy I have ever seen in my life. We gave her a big cardboard box with a towel inside, some water, and some dinner, and then left her outside for the night. Where she promptly howled and cried, keeping everyone awake and eventually escaping her box and sneaking inside. Did I mention that potcakes are wicked smart?

It was determined that we could move her box inside the center, since she's so little and the other dogs were harassing her. So we gave her a bath (which she HATED) and brought her inside. We knew we couldn't keep her, due to center rules and the fact that no one is around consistently enough to actually take care of a puppy, so one of the staff contacted Potcake Place, a potcake adoption center on Provo. So we'll send her to Provo where she'll get all her shots, and then she'll stay there a month until she's old enough to be adopted.

After a long Facebook campaign, it was determined that my family actually already HAS a dog and a cat, and we could not take in a stray potcake. Luckily, one of the other girls on the program sent the info to her parents, since they were already looking for a new dog. They Skyped last night (Nugget was present as well, obviously), and they said yes! So Nuggs is going to live a wonderful life in upstate New York, and we are all so happy!

Nugget will have to leave us tomorrow, and the center will seem very lonely without a small puppy running around our feet and sleeping in hammocks with us all the time. But she's going to get nice and healthy, and have a much better life than she would have here. We'll miss you Nuggs!

Lists of Little Things

Wow I'm posting so frequently...is that a good thing or a bad thing? Whatever. Well, I know you've all been anxiously waiting my next update for the last three days, so here it is:

I've decided that there are a lot of wonderful things about this trip that I have neglected to mention, because they are not flashy enough to warrant a post all to themselves. Which seems unfair to them, since I enjoy these little things nearly every day. So I decided to list them here, and hopefully you will all get a better idea of what day to day life at the Center for Marine Resource Studies is like:


THE LIST:
1. Honey Nut Cheerios at breakfast. I love those things.
2. I can go to class barefoot
3. I can give group presentations barefoot
4. I can go to meals barefoot
5. BAREFOOT ALL THE TIME!
6. There are four dogs that live around the center and follow us around, and they are wonderful
7. My mosquito net makes me feel like I'm sleeping the canopy bed 9-year-old me always wanted
8. Foosball table
9. Egyptian Ratscrew (except no red 10s, so I look like I have a twitch every time one is played)
10. People play dominos at the local bars
11. Dominos is awesome
12. The sea wall is lined with conch shells
13. There are two cannons next to the pool
14. HAMMOCK NAPS
15. Perfect sunsets every night
16. Lots of hemp for cool sea glass necklaces
17. Everyone here likes Mumford & Sons
18. Comfortable breeze pretty much all day
19. I haven't gotten sunburned!
20. Murals on the walls
21. The houses in town are often painted bright colors
22. Everyone says hi to each other, whether you know them or not
23. I can do homework while staring at the ocean
24. My lab practicals are snorkeling trips
25. Delicious baked good for snack every day at 4


I think that covers it for now, I may start keeping a running list in my journal if I think of any more. Also I'm going to take more pictures soon, and hopefully post them. Or I'll just steal pictures from other people because they have better cameras than me...

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, Children are INSANE

So as a change of pace, I figured I'd tell you all about our community outreach projects, instead of continuing to just talk about fish...

On Saturday we had our first day of community cutreach at the center, where we invite the kids of Cockburn Harbor over for swimming lessons. They were so excited that they started lining up outside the gates an hour before the lessons started! Since only a few kids can be in the pool at a time, those of us who weren't teaching had to keep the rest of them occupied. I worked at the crafts table, and helped kids make Valentines and tissue paper flowers. This description probably makes it all sound more structured than it was, we basically just had thirty or so kids under the age of 13 running all over the center. Favorite quotes from that afternoon:

"DEER live near you? I thought they weren't real!!!!!!!!" -after asking me what animals live near my house

"You can see the veins in your arms! You're an ALIEN!" -after tracing the blue veins in my arm and trying to count my freckles

Yesterday we all went into the local schools, and I went to a kindergarten class to read stories. Never will I say that the kids I substitute for are crazy again. There were only twelve kids in the class, but it felt like at least 50. From the moment we walked in it was a stead stream of yelling, pushing, grabbing, hitting, and crying. We finally just took them outside and let them play on the playground, where at least the open space made them seem a little quieter! That being said, they really were adorable. When the teacher opened the door they all came running over and hugged us, and sat in out laps as we (attempted) to read them stories. I learned that long hair is magic wherever you go, and the little girls began to put little braids all over my head and declared they were a "saloon." We also sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Jingle Bells about 50,000 times, accompanied by very enthusiastic drumming. Apparently Jingle Bells never goes out of style, even in February. As exhausted as I was by the end, I still can't wait to go back next week. Especially now that I know what to expect!

On an unrelated note, I've been declared "close enough" to be a ginger. I'm kind of psyched about it.

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GUYS I SAW A HUMPBACK WHALE ON MY DIVE TODAY. AN HONEST TO GOODNESS WHALE. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

But seriously you guys. I got ready for my dive this morning, pretty psyched because TCI is always amazing. We got all our gear, got in the boat, and set out for The Arch: a dive site featuring, unsurprisingly, a coral arch. The first part of the dive was great, lots of cool fish, relaxing and peaceful. We knew whales were in the area, but we thought they were much farther out. Since sound travels so well underwater we could hear them if we were quiet, but we were mostly focusing on the fish.

Suddenly one of the guys in my group started freaking out, and we all turned to look where he was pointing. At first I was looking too close, looking for a barracuda or a shark or something, and then I saw this white outline farther away in the water. At first I couldn't figure out what it was, but then I started thinking, "Wow, that really looks like the flipper of a whale!" Then our dive master started freaking out and screaming underwater, and we all started freaking out, and it was a WHALE!!!

We basically screamed for the entire boat ride back, just shouting about whales. We saw them spout a couple of times on our way back, and the intern who was boat-sitting while we were down there saw two of them breaching. When we got back to the dock no one believed us at first, but then they were just super jealous.

BECAUSE WE SAW A FREAKING WHALE.

In case you forgot what a whale looks like. This picture is from the internet.

Magical Mystery Tour

Oh, you thought that title was a joke? Well it isn't. More on that later, but first...

We started out the morning with a dive at 8:30 (and yes all you skeptics I even made it to breakfast at 7:00), which was amazing. Of course. We were all much more comfortable in the water than the first time, and were really able to enjoy the reef. When we first got down to the bottom (about 45-50 feet), two barracuda swam over and slowly circled us, staring at our shiny air tanks with their grumpy faces. Apparently barracuda are sort of like magpies in that they like shiny things, so they are always fascinated by divers. Then we got to swim around the "Fish Bowl," which is basically exactly what it sounds like: a ring of coral filled with fish! So that was fabulous.

Usually Wednesday would be the day that we go work in the local schools, but they aren't ready for us yet so we went on the aforementioned Magical Mystery Tour, or MMT. And yes, that is actually what it was called. We got into small groups, and went on a sort of scavenger hunt around Cockburn Harbor (pronounced "Coburn"), talking to "Belongers" (locals) and learning more about where we live. One of the other guys in my group and I finally succeeded in befriending an island cat, and the other member of our group started calling us the "cat whisperers." Then we ran into what felt like every kid on the island as they got out of school. I had talked to one 9-year-old girl in the group before, and she came running over saying "Do you remember me? Do you remember me?" and then she grabbed onto my hand and started showing me to all of her friends! They were all great kids, and thrilled that we will be starting up swimming lessons at the center again on Saturday. A couple of the younger girls pinched my cheeks and poked the freckles on my arm as they talked, and they all wanted to feel my hair. Finally they all remembered that they had to get home, and we continued with our MMT. On our way back to the center we found a wild horse, but it did not want to make friends, even though we offered it grass. Apparently the grass growing by the side of the road was better.

This evening we were treated with a demonstration on how to "knock conch," or take the creature out of the shell to clean it and cook it (although the cooking part is optional!). And these conchs are huge, as you can see:

The conchs all ready to be knocked

Cutting the conch free from its shell

Still safe and sound...

Outside in the big world! 

Ryan and Hannah learned how to knock conchs

Hannah had a little trouble...

In the bowl, ready to be made into conch fritters. So delicious!

So conchs all around, a presentation tomorrow, a lab practical on Friday, and our first day of community outreach on Saturday! Exciting stuff people, exciting stuff.

"It's a whole nother world down there..."

Colby fam, that use of "whole nother" was for you. I hope you appreciated it.

But anyway, the title of this blog just became even more accurate because nothing is closer to flying than SCUBA diving on a coral reef. I just got back from my first real dive, complete with buddies and decompression stops an everything. And I'm still alive! I can't believe I get to do this around twice a week for the rest of the semester.

We were tested on our diving skills in the pool the other day, and were then put into small groups of mixed skill levels. I'm with four other students and one intern. Pretty sure I'm one of the less experienced haha...But still, it was awesome. My wetsuit is so thick that I have to wear an extra 22 lbs of weight, which is sort of ridiculous, but it doesn't feel like anything underwater. Transporting the gear to and from the boat though, that's a bit of a pain.

Underwater it's so peaceful, and everything is so beautiful. I understand now why seeing a shark won't be scary when it happens. It's hard to explain, but somehow you feel like you're all on the same side down there (don't worry, I won't be so happy go lucky that I'll do something stupid!). We didn't see any large animals today, but we saw gorgeous coral and millions of colorful fish. Here are some pictures (that I found on the internet because I don't have an underwater camera) of the species that we saw:

Blue headed wrasse

French angelfish

Fan coral

Staghorn coral

Stoplight parrotfish

Yesterday we had our first ID slideshow on all of the species we will have to know for the mangrove habitat. Except the lab practical for this will be in the field! The interns will point at a species and we have to write the latin name on our dive slates. My head is so full of latin right now it's ridiculous. We had six lectures yesterday, and a talk from a guy who runs an eco-tourism business on Provo. So all of our brains are fried, but full of knowledge!

This afternoon we'll be talking about what we'll be doing for community involvement, which will start next Saturday. Every time we go into town all the little kids run up to us asking when we'll start having swim lessons at the center again. They are so cute, and I can't wait! We're also going to be doing beach clean-ups, teaching ESL classes, and helping out in the schools. So more on that later, I'll let you all get back to your lives now.

Also, 30 Rock reference in the title anyone?