7/6/02
8:00amà 10:45am Newark to Miami- and how terribly dull it was too. Ever notice how airport staff like to be
mean? Just as I had finished saying
goodbye to Mom, the security guy made fun of me and started joking that I was going
to cry. I wasn’t…I was just
nervous. Anyway, on the plane, I found
my seat: 9C, an aisle, how depressing.
The plane had a few empty seats.
Every time a person boarding came down the aisle, I’d beg the god of
airplanes that they wouldn’t be in my row.
Just my luck, it was working fine until the very last couple
boarded. Fickle airplane gods. I’m so mad.
Anyway, halfway through the flight, they realize that they’re supposed
to be in E and F on the other side of the aisle, not A and B. which were all
empty before they came. They decided
they didn’t want to move. *sigh.
I’m in Miami now, waiting for my
2:30pm flight to Barbados. I couldn’t
find any worthwhile restaurants @ which to eat. There was a Chili’s and a Sbarro’s…. Unfortunately, I don’t
really consider that food. So I went,
got my bag, rechecked it and went to my terminal: F. I asked the woman guarding the entrance if there were any good
restaurants in the terminal. She gave
me a stern look and a long lecture about different points of view and how
should she know? Why should she
care? *shrug….Why shouldn’t she care? Anyway,
I’ve spent so much $ already: $3 for a cart to push my bag in, $1 for a teeny,
tiny bag of chips, $3.75 for a Newsweek magazine about the current court case about
the Pledge of Allegiance. Alas, it only
took me about 2 hours to read the entire thing. Plus, they turned on the air conditioning for some strange
reason. Who knew Miami could be so
cold? Plus, It’s raining out and the
plane for Chicago has been delayed which only inadvertently affects me, since
all the business men are strolling around looking terribly upset.
Arrived in Barbados @ 6:30 pm. Beautiful Sunset and arrived at the
institute @ 7:15. I was introduced to
the group and shown to my room by my roommate who is named Lauri. She’s very talkative. The room is a little scary. A lot of cracked walls, an ugly bathroom
with iron stains dripping from the faucets.
Oh well, soooooo……tired.
7/7/02
woke up at 6:00am this morning, but went back to sleep as they told us at instructions that we didn’t have to meet until 8:30. Woke up again @ 8:00 and shook Lauri awake.
Everyone made their own breakfast: a
lot of cereal and eggs. I had a glass
of milk and a slice of bread with peanut butter and honey. Suzanne told us our objectives and how we
would be observing over breakfast. We
left to get ready at 10:15! That’s a
long conference! We then went
snorkeling and were shown the nests. I have #’s 5 and 13 on the near-shore
reef. There were a lot of fish out
there. We monitored our nests, watching
for activity. We checked for eggs and
took pictures of the eggs. Got out of
the water about 25 minutes before lunch which was @ noon. Sandwiches.
With HUGE chunks of cheese.
*shrug. Ok.
6:00pm slept right through the check-in dive. I’m a snorkel, so I wasn’t supposed to be there anyway. Found time to draw fish though. First attempt @ JACKKNIFE FISH was mine, 2nd
staff’s; final finished attempt is as seen in REEF FISH IDENTIFICATION. Queen Trigger as well. Waiting for dinner right now. Signed up for zooplankton tow for the next 3
days. Hopefully I’ll do a good swim. Lots of BEAUTIFUL fish on the reef. Lots of new ideas for my room….heh. Oh well.
10:30pm
went to the Karaoke Bar with 4 other
women on the trip. Fun to watch, not so
much to listen. We only stayed for 4
songs. Lots of teenage girls there…I
assume they were on some sort of teen tour.
American Pie was horrible….it probably doesn’t help that I’m not a fan
of the song to begin with.
Torn
was sung my this 10 yr. Old (or so she looked) local and her 5 yr. Old sister
(who was adorable). I have to say, they were really good. The younger one needs some voice training
and a slightly more mature voice, but other than that, terrific. Afterward, she sang “my heart will go on”
which was cute, though I doubt Celine Dion meant for it to be like that.
Some other local with dreadlocks
sang Annie’s Song. Oh, how he
sucked. <=. O
Oh
my. It was horrible. So we left
11:00
pm
going to listen to some music and
then d r i f t o f f. sleepy time
7/8/02
6:15am
I slept horribly. I was awake pretty much all night. And all morning. I’ve been awake for an hour already. *yawn!
At
5:30 I tried as hard as I could to go back to sleep, because someone outside
was smoking marijuana, and the fan was spreading it everywhere. I felt so disgusting...like I was coated
with slime...though that could have been sweat... *ewwwwwww
11:35am
My fish had day 2 or day 3 eggs
yesterday. Today? Nothing.
Eaten I suppose. I have
zooplankton tow today. I guess I’ll be
horse. * sigh.
Anyway,
we started egg count @8:30 and got out again @ 10:30. It certainly didn’t feel like we’d been in that long
4:15pm
Did some reading after lunch
Lamb
for dinner...yummmmmmm....
Getting
ready for the zooplankton tow. My two
partners aren’t yet back from their dive.
Hope they’re back before dinner.
I’ve been sufficiently warned about the tow. Riannon told me that it was really
hard. Oh well, we’ll see.
7/9/02
After inshore nest check.
Let’s finish yesterday...I was too
tired to really finish it.
So
I did my zooplankton tow in the afternoon at around 4:30. We came back @ 5:50. Only 10 minutes to dinner! It WAS hard, but not as hard as Rhiannon had
said it would be. It’s like swimming 2
full camp laps carrying mom on a boogie board.
That’s no easy task, but it’s not exactly Atlas either.
So I did that pretty well, but then
again, I couldn’t do it with my snorkel which is what I had predicted would
happen. Basically, I put the rope
around my waist, took off my snorkel and started free stylin’ my way
forward. But that was too slow...and
too tiring, and putting all the strain on my arms and upper back. Go much faster when I sidestroke, so that’s
what I did. Of course, now I have a
blister appx. Half the size of Barbados itself. And it hurts an awful lot.
Ouch.
So today, my nests were empty. We
were out for an hour and a half. Saw 2 eels and yesterday, I saw a trumpet
fish. Not much exciting seems to happen here.
I knkow mom warned me about that.
Heh. The most exciting thing to
happen in the pas 24 hours was last night’s dinner. Yummmmm. Lamb. Lamb and salad and potatoes. And for dessert, cake which Riannon and I
made for Adam’s birthday.
Boy, that cake took forever and a
day to make. The mix was too watery, we
didn’t have a bowl to make it in, we didn’t know how to use a gas oven. We had to ask the cook. Plus, the oven didn’t have temperatures on
it, just numbers from 1 to 4. When we
finally got the oven lit, we put it on the 2nd highest setting and
put the cake in. The ultimate result
was that the cake browned on the top and was still like liquid inside. We fixed it and it turned out pretty well. Chocolate frosted with M&M’s...though I
have to admit that the M&M’s were Riannon’s idea.
I did my second zooplankton tow
too. I was lookout, Adam was horse, and
Lauri was driver. It went by pretty
fast. Even so, it was about an hour
that we were out there.
I drew for the most part of my free
time, but I would have gotten more done.
I forgot to mention that right before our tow, we went to Mullin’s beach
to do a reef survey. Talk about dangerous
drivers! The bus drivers ($1.50 each
way) are almost as bad as the NJ
transit drivers. heh. Almost. Anyway, reef surveys are pretty strenuous
work. I was in the second deepest group
(by request). We took a measuring tape
and measured out 10 meters and wrote down exactly was under each half
meter. Needless to say, I can’t dive
that far or long. That’s not to say I
didn’t try. I made 5 or 6
contributions, but I was off balance the rest of the day and I had an enormous
headache resulting from the water pressure pressing against my mask. It felt like someone was squeezing my
forehead through a juicer. GAH! I felt really bad because I hadn’t
contributed much and I felt that Katie was mad at me for it.
Also, my band aid fell off during
the survey (which took 2 and a half hours due to the fact that we did a total
of 50 meters) so my blister has been popped and is quite painful. So far, 3 people have suggested duct
tape. So, note to self: get duct
tape. Directly after arriving back at
the institute from our survey, we had the previously mentioned tow.
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g that they had everything. I walked
past to check the lab, but it was full, and
there was a line. So I thought that
maybe I’d just wait outside. Somehow,
I’m not exactly sure how they managed it, Sam and Joanna got me to go night
snorkling with them.
We saw a lot of gobys, 3 lobsters, 2
shrimp (jumbo shrimp, heheh), 2 eels, 3 pufferfish (one of which was quite in
love with Sam’s flashlight), and a lot of juvenile snappers. It was pretty nice, but nothing terribly
special. *shrug* Well, off to bed. *Yawwwnnnnnnnnn. *Zzzzzzzzzzzz.......
7/10/02
Inshore nest check today . . . still
nothing. Mary Jane moved #13 because
the damsel fish that had originally lived there had moved. Now, there’s nothing there. So she moved it a couple inches to the
left. I had another zooplankton tow
today. I was lookout again, but I’m bad
@ looking out, as clearly illustrated bye the fact that the rest of the group
ended up where it was supposed to, and I
ended up about 10 yards outside the buoys.
Around 2 hours in the water.
About 5 people headed off to view a plantation. The rest of us just stayed for lunch.
10:30
pm
Lauri just walked in . . . seems
they had trouble catching a bus back. I
did nothing for the rest of the night.
I just sulked around, sat in the rain, that kind of stuff.
ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
7/11/02
6:57
pm
Pretty busy day today. Checked nests at 9:00 am, and came back at
10:30. Adam wasn’t there. Coop said that Adam was all packed and had
told him he didn’t need any sunscreen. So I have nest #7 too! It
didn’t look like anyone was home. There
were other fish munching on the roof of the little fish house . . . and no one
being aggressive about it. Oh well,
we’ll see.
After lunch, I went back to my room
and took a short ½ hour nap. At 2:00,
we geared up again for a snorkel at Batt’s Rock. Another Reef survey. Not
nearly as hard or difficult as the reef survey at Mullin’s Beach. That might be attributed to my being paired
up with Estelle who is very easy going (a sophomore at BU) who was ½ of group 3
(Adam had been the other half). So I
took his place and we worked together pretty well, though slowly. We figured out that both Estelle and I knew sign
language, which made the task immensely easier. Another crazy busride at 4:45 and we were home with an hour ‘til
dinner.
Oh.
Suzanne told us that Adam had been thrown out as a result of having
borken the alcohol policy put in place by the staff. And so, he has been sent home.
I don’t know why anybody would jeopardize their vacation like that
unless they really wanted to go
home. But that doesn’t even seem like a
likely answer.
*note to self: ask Tina about hair
gel, get more sunscreen, and nail clippers.
The rain yesterday seems to have
created a boom in mosquitoes who think I’m some kind of fine wine they can get
drunk upon.
I keep trying to mentally shoo them
towards Sam. I know that’s so
cruel. Sam has lost so much blood to
them already. His bites are in lines,
like a giant connect the dot board on one arm, his bites go:
8
bites!?!
In
a row!!!
and
that’s just his elbow. They’re all over
him. Poor Sam, poor Sam. Well the mosquitoes seem lured to me by my
conditioner. I try to ward them off by
wearing a hat, but no such luck.
8:15pm
After an extensive game of whist
(Lauri lured us unwittingly into it . . . it takes forever), I’m
exhausted. Most of the adults went to a
bar down the road. Apparently,
Thursdays are karaoke night at the cross-dresser bar, and the group wanted to
go and watch. So I’m pretty much alone,
but that’s ok, this project is strenuous and I’m tired, so I’ll listen to music
for a while and then go to sleep.
7/12/02
2:45
pm
Not much exciting stuff happening,
but I’m so
TIRED!!!
So
at 8:am, we went out again to see our fish . . . as always. Still no eggs in either of mine or Adam’s
#7. Suzanne says mating will be
starting to subside around now. I’d say
that mating has already subsided. Got
out at ½ past ten. Had off until 12
which was the time Estelle and I decided to do our beach survey. Beach survey is 2 hours of sitting in the
hot, hot sun and “people watching” as Suzanne puts it. lol. Well, it was harder
than it sounds. First, we had to take
the wood sign Suzanne had made and the 2 posts to support it. As well as our survey sheet. Well, it took Estelle and me 3 attempts to
get our post sufficiently dug into the sand.
Then, we sat a little ways off on the rocks to avoid the sun (which was
a futile attempt), so we could see most of the beach. One of the beach guards came over and yelled at us for about 5
minutes about hour our sign couldn’t be there.
Oh well, can’t please everyone.
So only 3 people really read
that sign. 13 people looked at it in
all. Out of about 100 people. People are so oblivious. So what are we watching? Well, we’re Earth Watchers! Hahahahahaaa . .
. I kill myself. We’re watching the
beach, the sign (which fell over 2ce) and we’re watching the reef to see if
people are standing on it. We’re also
watching someone’s random 2 year old who wandered over to us. He was naked and kept offering us sand. I asked him where his parents were, and he
pointed out a couple in the water; a young white girl who looked about 15 yrs.
old and a young black guy who looked to be around 18-20! and these people saw that their kid was
wandering over the rocks and just didn’t seem to care. So Estelle and I are super watchers because
we were watching him too! Though I wish
we didn’t have to worry about this random child we don’t know.
Anyway,
I just took a shower . . . at least my hair is dry (I put a ziploc baggie over
my hair to keep it dry in the shower.).
We’re going to eat out tonight . . . I hope it’s not too expensive,
we’re going to Oistin’s Whoo!
7/13/02
So last night was ok. Not terrific. It certainly was loud.
They had a lot of music, but the bass was turned up so high that if you
stood near the music booth, you could feel your insides vibrate. It was $8.00B to get there, and $6.00B to
get back. My food was $8.00B but it was
so spicy I could hardly eat it at all and had some ice cream later on to cool
down my mouth. Water was $2.00 and ice
cream was $2.75. I also bought a pretty
necklace with a jar attached full of pebbles.
That was $20.00 B! oof. I wish I hadn’t bought that.
It’s a Saturday . . . our one free
day. I had planned to go with the group
to the wildlife reserve and take a bus back while they continued their day, but
Suzanne looked doubtful, and seemed to think I should stay with the group. But I only brought 120 US with me! Lauri and I tried to figure out how much
money I needed to have for essential things like departure tax and dinner with
the group and we came out to just over 100 dollars US, 200 Barbados. I just don’t have that kind of money if you
include tours and trips! It’s already
cost me $6.00 just to take a bus to the beaches we HAD to go to for the
research. I really think they should
have included that $ in the price to come on this expedition and just give that
required money directly to Suzanne so she could pay our fares for us. I have just under 90 dollars left and I plan
to use it sparingly. Sparingly means no
tours with the rest of the group. <=..(
No anything unless I’ve already planned it. I wish mom had sent me with a credit card so I could get more
money. even 20 dollars more US. would
go a long way. So here I am, on our
only free day, all alone. Everyone left
at 9:30
It’s either a miraculous
coincidence, or I’m a weather witch. It
seems to rain here when I’m crying. And
stops when I stop. I’m so depressed.
I feel trapped because people like
Suzanne and Rhiannon are berating me for sticking around so often and not going
anywhere. But I don’t want to be stuck
here with no money, and I feel that that is more important. Lauri offered to lend me money, and I
suppose that was always an option, but I don’t like to owe people things when
it’s not necessary. And it’s not. I can stretch myself, but I will NOT go into
debt. I think now, I’m going to sulk in
my room for a little while. It also
occurs to me that I have no lunch provided for me. Oh well.
11:00
pm
My day has been so wasted it
seems. I spent my first hour trying to
get the computers to go faster so it wouldn’t take an hour to read e-mail. No such luck. Nothing from anyone. Not
even my parents. *Sigh. Then I went back to my room and sulked. Decided to start my summer reading. It was actually pretty good. At noon, Suzanne knocked and said she was
treating the staff and me (we were the only ones still here) to lunch. We went to Chefette and had really spicy
chicken sandwiches. They didn’t give me
enough water. Afterwards, we went to
the gas station where I picked up some chocolate and then came back. Where I promptly locked myself back into my
room. And continued to read. Group 1 arrived at 5:30, just in time for
dinner (Gwen’s fabulous beef stew with indiscernible chunks of “stuff.” Some cheesecake for dessert, and I was back
in my room continuing, then finishing the first half of my summer reading. Except I have to go back and read it again
because I only did my journal entries up to chapter 9.
Oh, by the way, am I ever glad I
didn’t go touring with the groups today . . .group 1’s cab fare? $100B
each!!! Gasp!
So I concluded the day by starting
work on 3 colored pencil fish. Mary
Jane had asked for them, so she could get a glass fish made for her
friend. I’m so tired, but maybe I’ll
just listen to some music . . . . . .
7/14/02
11:30
am
1 month until my birthday! Confetti!
Lauri
left at 7:30 this morning to
go
to church. I think she’s just sucking
up to the locals. She told me she
wanted to learn their gospel. That’s a
laugh. So I watched her go, thinking,
“I doubt it’s going to be any different from when you’re at home. I asked her how it was when she
returned. She said that it was boring
and not all that different. Well, gee,
I could have told her that . . . but I decided not to gloat.
So at 9:00 we went out and checked
our nests. We’re at a low point because
it’s almost a new moon. The water was
awfully murky today. I had to take my
snorkel out so I could dive deep enough to see my nests. I think I’m getting better, I can certainly
dive further than I could when we started.
No one to be seen at 13. And
just one fish hovering over #5. I don’t
know what he’s protecting; he hasn’t got any eggs.
We got out a little before 10. I’m currently preparing myself for yet
another reef survey this afternoon right next door at Folkestone. *Sigh.
Oh well, it can’t be helped.
7/15/02
What a busy day! I’m completely exhausted. First, let me finish yesterday: Folkestone. What horrible weather. Ale the staff people said the current and the direction of the waves has never before been that bad. Personally, I don’t believe them. There has to have been something worse. They just probably weren’t there to witness it.
Estelle and I were group 3 again, however, Katie, Sam and Joanna had left to do a beach survey at Batts Rock, so there was only half of group 4 and no group 5 at all (they all went back to do it when they had finished). Estelle and I were the only ones working in the reef. Never again. As we measured out our 10 meter increments, we had to keep checking that as we swam through the coral, we didn’t get pulled into it. All the while I found myself drifting a few scant inches away from a vicious cut on the sharp reef. 2 or 3 times, I looked down from writing on the slate to see that I was on the coral and only the way I float had kept me from getting scratched up (knees up, no paddling with my feet, tread with the arms as if I was sculling)!
The current was far too strong. After our first transect Estelle and I called over Mary Jane to ask if we should really be doing that in such dangerous conditions. Her reply was to send us further into the reef. It didn’t help. If anything, the waves were stronger out there. I would write some integral point on the slate, and look back down into the water only to see that I had drifted over 4 or 5 feet and was on the verge of smashing or rather being smashed into the coral! It was terribly traumatic. Anyway, we finished our survey and had just as much trouble getting back to shore. What an ordeal. It was like being stuck in a maze, we had to backtrack a lot before we finally got out.
At the end of the reef survey, I came back to the room and took a shower. Then Lauri took hers. We realized that the shower wasn’t draining for some reason. We fished around for some of my hair, but there was none to be found. We figured we’d let it sit for the rest of the day to see if it drained by itself. No such luck. So we had 4 inches of smelly water at the bottom of our shower. GACK! Or, essentially, Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww!!!
Gross!
But I shouldn’t complain . . . that’s what all my bathing suits smell like. It can’t be helped.
Of course, the water didn’t drain. But we didn’t know that.
After dinner, Marella, Mary Jane, Claudia, Lauri and I went to Tuckaway’s for Ice Cream. It was good but not terrific. But then, I’m a perfectionist. Heh. Another 2 crazy bus rides, another $3 and $3.50 more for the ice cream.
I do so miss cream soda. I can’t exactly say why. I never drink it much at home. Also for chocolate and vanilla pudding. Oh yummy. Another thing I never eat at home! And watermelon Jell-O. I have the strangest craving for watermelon Jell-O. *shrug
As to today:
woke up at 7:30 am and roused Lauri so she could head off for her beach survey which was 8-10 am at Folkestone. I have that shift tomorrow with Coop at Mullins beach. Batts Rock scares me a little. I don’t feel safe there. I don’t care what anyone says, I’ll stick to my instinct. Checked on the fish from 9-9:40. Still no activity. I covered two of Lauri’s three nests 19 and 22. Nothing at her either. But the fish at 19 is feisty and took a nip at me! My fish don’t do anything at all. Tried to teach Claudia how to dive. It’s tricky for her, but she’s getting it. Afterwards, I came back to the room and got my shower things and walked to East Block to take my shower and told the manager that ours wasn’t draining. He had it plunged while I showered in the collective bathrooms in East. Once I dried off a bit, I started packing. Put all of my dirty clothes in a trash bag at the bottom of my sent luggage and started organizing my carry ons. Nothing much after that.
After lunch, at 2 PM, the divers went off to do predator surveys. When they got back at 5, I went out with Joanna and Jana for my zooplankton tow. I was horse again. It’s funny, I don’t remember it being that hard the first time. I ran out of steam about halfway through, but I kept pushing myself, saying just a bit further, a bit further. Perhaps I tired myself out because I was going faster than the last time. I don’t know. It seemed just as long, but Mary Jane looked at her watch as we were floating so I could regain my breath and said, “Jeez, that was real fast!” *shrug. Maybe I was going faster than I should have. I rested for about 5 minutes and headed back. Unfortunately, I swam straight into the Folkestone reef. At that point, I was just physically exhausted. I’m stronger swimming with my left leg . . . I guess I must have been using it more during the tow because my left leg cramped up ¼ of the way through the reef.
The mean waves from yesterday were back there too, so I went very slowly and very carefully through there. I saw a lot of parrotfish though. I was the last one back of the tow swimmers, and I basically collapsed upon the shore at my first attempt to walk. Man, I was soooo tired.
Went back to my room. Checked the time. 6:30 PM. It must have taken me longer than I thought to swim back today. I took another quick shower, this time in my room, and dressed rapidly. But I wasn’t at all hungry for dinner. In fact, I felt sick to my stomach for an hour or two after the tow. I ate a little at dinner. Afterwards, I ran to fetch Trivial Pursuit in a desperate plea for something more thought provoking than playing cards as Lauri and Claudia wanted. Oh well, no takers. I climbed walls for that game! It was quite upsetting. Death to Whist!!! And now, I sit writing this journal entry and it’s time to sleep. I feel like collapsing again. *Sigh. Good Night.
7/16/02
7:25 PM
Still no Trivial Pursuit. This is very upsetting. All the adults decided after dinner that they’d head off to “The Mews,” a bar, for some drinks. So of course, here I am, left alone again on this, the last night of the Expedition with nothing at all to do but write in here.
*ho hum
Set off this morning at 7:30 with Coop to Mullins for our beach survey, which was actually quite relaxing. We counted 60 people total: 32 locals, 28 tourists, and no small children to take charge of!! Only 3 people read the sign, but no one took anything, littered or stood on the reef . . . so, that was a plus.
When we came back, I re-ducted this journal . . . poor thing was falling apart at the seams.
Lunch was cheese sandwiches as usual. Directly after, I ran to our room that I may escape the school kids Suzanne had said were coming. I took a 3 hour nap and then continued packing. I’m pretty much finished now. Checked my e-mail. Still nothing. Spoke to Tian. I’m so insulted that they didn’t even realize that I’d gone missing.
Dinner was lamb again. Yum. Waiting now for the group to come back from the bar. My flight leaves tomorrow morning at 7:55. I’m sharing a taxi with Claudia and Estelle. Hopefully, it won’t be too expensive, Otherwise, I can’t afford it and will be forced to spend my life here in pigeon-hell . . . counting fish, avoiding poop and on the lookout for monkeys who may steal my shoes. Dear lord, no!
7/17/02
10:20 AM
On a plane. A very cold plane. To Miami. I had the worst time sleeping last night. I finally managed to drift a bit at 11:30 PM. Unfortunately, it didn’t last. I woke up at 3 in the morning, paced around a bit, scratched some mosquito bites and tried again. No such luck. Finally, at 3:45 I decided that maybe I’d be able to get to sleep if I listened to my Discman. No luck there either. At 4:30, I gave up and finished packing my carry-ons. Even though I know I told Claudia and Estelle to wake me up at 5. Went to their room and waited for Claudia to finish packing, and then for the taxi.
He came at 5:30 and we left for the airport. $10 U.S. each for the taxi.
here was the tricky part: I went to the BWIA counter. While waiting in line, I saw the departure board. It said Miami: 9:40 AM. Of course I went up to a representative to see what had happened. She said the flight was late coming in. 2 hours late! Oof. Anyhow, I told her I had a connecting flight in Miami that I would miss. She checked my bags and sent me to the counter. I don’t think the woman behind the desk really comprehended how I could have a connecting flight when the connection left before I had arrived. I had to really explain to her that 9:40 AM was not the time scheduled for the original flight . . .
What a headache.
so here I am on American Airlines.
And I was all set to say goodbye to Claudia and Estelle at the airport in Barbados! I’m on their flight, window seat F30 on a Boeing 757.
We departed at 8 AM just 5 minutes after my original flight was set to take off.
Yeah, the service sucks, and it’s freezing like a winter in Alaska, but I’m going in the right direction and I’m only slightly behind schedule.
woah . . . calm down.
10:20 PM
Well, I made it through, perfectly and besides feeling like I was always in a freezer, today was a pretty good day.
After arriving in Miami, I got the run around from a few workers and a total of 4 12’s: “You’re travelling alone? How old are you? You look about 12.”
The American Airlines flight was chilly all the way to Miami. They really know what they’re doing when they give you those little fleece blankets on the plane. Of course the blankets are just big enough for my to fit 1 foot under it. So it didn’t really do that much good.
Once at Miami, the guy at customs gave me a lot of grief, but I tried to ignore him. He kept asking me if I knew where I was like I was drugged up and might be coming out of a coma or something.
When I first saw my plane to Nassau, I thought “Awwww, that’s so cute!” The second thing I thought was, “Oooooh, c’est trop mignon, cet avion!” That’s a scary thought. The 3rd thing I thought was, I don’t think I can stand up in there!
7/19/02
You stayed WHERE?!?!
Alright, I missed quite a few days, but the remainder of my trip going to meet mom was relatively incident free. The plane ride was about an hour long, but quite uncomfortable. I froze. To put it mildly. I turned off the vent that was directed at me and was left wondering why I felt that it was still on. I held my fingers near to the wall and could feel the coldness seeping . . .no, leaking, spilling, and splashing through. I tried to prevent it by placing a magazine in front of it, but that didn’t help and I was left doubled over for heat for the rest of the flight. Not the most comfortable of positions. No more mishaps after we landed, except for me telling the customs agent that I didn’t know where we were staying. She let me through anyway.
I waited 45 minutes for Mom and Yvonne. Oh, it was so good to see them. It would have been better had Dad and Tink been there too.
Mom got us a cab and we drove off happily to the hotel: the Marriott and Crystal Plaza.
Absolutely beautiful with a pool, Jacuzzi, waterslide and several restaurants.
Our room was . . . roomy, not many hotel rooms are; I feel enormously lucky.
I’ll skip the rest of my 2 day stay there. Just a few slight details: We went swimming every day. We visited Atlantis (Mom made us walk there! it was about 3 miles away!) which was even better than our hotel. Aquariums, murals, and lots of fish-related merchandise (hey, who can say no to a fish?). Yvonne cot so worried because we were skulking around the Aquarium and pools without wristbands, which would have cost $25 dollars each. But we weren’t caught . . . we just really worried Yvonne. Ah well. Oh yes, and I got fabulously ill after each meal during the stay on that particular island. Mom said it was from the tap water I had on the first night. However, once I reached this morning and I found that I was still sick, I refused her answer as a valid statement.
This morning I woke up at 7:30 as Yvonne was getting ready to go metal detecting and was once again quite sick. I went back to sleep to settle my stomach . . . it sort of worked. We had a bad breakfast, bought some Pepcid AC, and went swimming in the pool. We “tested” the waterslide too. We determined that it worked quite well.
In the last minutes before departing for the airport, panic enveloped us all . . . especially me. I couldn’t for the life of me remember where my money was or if I had left my tickets in my bag. I was a mess, all the while, Mom was rushing me like mad. Heh, we needn’t have worried.
When we got to the airport, we got an announcement that stated that my flight, which would normally have departed at 3:30pm was scheduled to depart at 4. Ok. Fine. I can handle that. Later: scheduled to depart at 7:00pm. WHAT!?!?! Or more correctly,
So mom and Yvonne waited with me and I met some of the other people on the Earthwatch expedition. They got another plane at 5, so we boarded, and alas, it seemed that the airport hadn’t thought about how many passengers they had
They sent a few off. Apparently, that hardly mattered, since 15 minutes after takeoff, (halfway through the flight) we turned right around and headed back to Nassau. *grumble, grumble. After disembarking from the plane, we spent 5 more minutes milling about and waiting, and then boarded up again. 25 more minutes and we were landing at Rocksound, one of the two airports of Eleuthra, with nary a hitch save the wails of the 4 small children on the plane. We were picked up Kathleen (who seems amiable enough)(who didn’t know I was staying for 2 teams). *Editor’s Note: this was an observation from my first moments of knowing Kathleen. Please don’t be angry with me when I grumble about her later.
We were on our way back to the island school, when we passed some pretty sketchy lookin’ hitchhikers . . . (we were riding in a pickup truck with all our luggage in the back) she actually stopped and let them ride in the back of the truck!
When we actually arrived, we ate dinner, which consisted mainly of rice, beans, salad, and barbecue chicken. Water was available for drinking, but after my past 3 days , I decided to stick to Milk for my first meal on the island. I’ve never had such milk! Perhaps I was drinking butter?(Interrobang) I swear, that’s what it tasted like. We all introduced ourselves afterwards. We have a lot of young people. I think there’s 4 teens. Richard, one of the Earthwatchers I met at the airport is the only guy on the team (if you don’t include the staff members)! And there are people from all over the world. Germany, England, Italy, Malta, Hong Kong, and a wide range throughout the U.S. This is a much more diverse group than we saw in Barbados.
Afterwards, I made an attempt to unpack. Perhaps I should not have been quite so ambitious. I feel as if there is no room for must of my stuff. I also realized that I don’t think I brought enough shorts. Oh well. I’ll live.
And boy is it HOT!
Well, I have to be ready to go at 6:15am tomorrow, plus the mosquitoes are getting at me again. I thought I was done with them when I left Barbados. Alas, Alas. GN ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
7/20/02
7:30am
Well, at least it cooled down last night, though, I’m on a top bunk, and everytime I have to go to the bathroom, it’s a big production to get down. I was really worried about not being able to wake up on time. I shouldn’t have lost sleep over it, I should have just listened to Connie. She told me that with the sound of 12 girls waking up, I’d probably wake up on my own. I did.
So I gathered all my stuff together (poncho, sunscreen, waterbottle, bugspraty, hat, clariten) and went down to breakfast. Which had many flies who seem to like our food.
Now, I have to say that the living arrangements are much better than they were in Barbados, but the food is most definitely worse. I had an idea that Chef Gwen rocked my world, but I obviously didn’t know how much. Well, I have to meet in the lab at 7:45. Be back later, I suppose.
2:45pm
I believe it to be pure luck that I can even write this.
So we met at the lab and got a talk about conservation and research methods. It was long . . . and dull. Then, Kathleen (director) split us into groups of 3 and 4. We were set into a rotation pattern and sent to different spots. My group (me, Silvia, Helen, and Connie) got sent to do marine transects first. The staff said that the current had never before been so strong. I ended up trying to walk against it to make the rope straight, but every time I stepped forward, I lost my balance (I was wearing flippers) and got pushed 2 or 3 steps back. The current was far too strong for some of our weaker swimmers (and for someone of my size and weight) who kept floating away. At this station, we were introduced to the 7 different kinds of algae.
7:15pm
Sorry . . . I fell asleep. I’m exhausted. It’s now 7:15pm. What a full and busy day it has been! And the work hasn’t even started yet!
After fighting the current for an hour and a half, we moved to Lester and Bridgett’s station. They showed us how to do shore transects, look for mollusks, and take samples. Lester talks in a soft monotone, so it was really hard for me to focus on what he was saying.
After another (incredibly dull) hour and a half, we had lunch (cheese sandwiches – I was beginning to think I’d never see one again! ;P >o ) and Kathleen announced that we’d be taking a small tour in the red pick-up truck. So we all piled in. It was wet after our heavy cloudburst during second rotation. We drove through the heat and wilderness while Kathleen pointed out plants (PLANTS!!!)
We stopped at the resort that had been begun in the 60’s and saw a lot of hermit crabs and soldier crabs. They’re quite ugly without their shells. Everyone went snorkeling except me, Joann, and Lester (We watched mollusks! Oh joy. Joy I say. I say joy quite blandly). We waited in the hot, hot sun. I didn’t feel like getting we again . . . I think that that is a very good reason. On our way back from there, Kathleen stopped near some cliffs and yet again, pointed out plants. Again, I say, joy. Then, we all piled in again into the truck and were waiting to go. But we didn’t. Go, I mean. As Kathleen pointed out, the battery had died. She left with Vanessa, running to get to the Van. Meanwhile, Lester and Dan (or was it Dave?) rehooked the battery and started up the truck. So we got back before Vanessa and Kathleen. I then when back to my bunk to commence writing this entry, and quite promptly fell asleep. Someone- I don’t remember who- woke me up at 4:15. At 4:30, I went to the Lab with my group for the third rotation. We then listened to Kathleen talk about – you guessed it! Plants! We spent 1.5 hours in the hot, hot sun. Bleh, how boring. And counting them. 97 finger grasses, 14 crow’s foot, 3 wild thyme . . . so forth, until I felt dead. Then we went straight to dinner – lasagna. Which didn’t quite satisfy my craving for pasta, but it did a little to relieve the pain. I had two helpings, actually, and then went back to my bunk (or rather, sat in the common room) to finish this entry.
8:00pm
Now in the library, waiting for the last stragglers so we can get on with the slideshow. Bleh again.
9:30pm
Loooooong slideshow. I think I was phasing in and out of consciousness throughout the entire presentation. 23 slides of words I didn’t understand, or at least didn’t understand at the moment. I’m ready to crawl into bed; I feel like I’ve been here forever. *snore
7/21/02
8:53pm
Such a long day . . . In fact, everyday feels like a long day here. *shrug. Id on’t like Kathleen . . . I don’t think she likes me either.
Again, we woke up at 6:15 this morning and dressed for a survey (the real thing this time). We headed for Poison point (the name scared me a lot). We took the truck again. We got locked out . . .they put up a gate outside the beach, so we went to a different beach. Kate and I did shore profiling – we collected snails. I backed out of algae sampling at the last minute because the place the algae people were surveying was too shallow for my tastes. There were a lot of sea urchins in the rock crevices **** yech! Thank gods I wasn’t on the plant team! They had to survey near 40 square meters of forest! I can’t even identify plants. Truth to tell, I think it would motivate our team a lot more if Kathleen would tell us what we were looking for, or at the very least, focus on 1 thing. We’re surveying sea, shore, land, forest, everything! There’s a different process for each, and it’s a major pain in the butt, because nothing is connected to anything else.
Kathleen also tends to move off on a tangent an awful lot. I often lose track of what she’s talking about but she gets sour if you don’t follow along. So we spent from 8:45 to 1:00pm doing our beach survey, eating crumbly cheese sandwiches at the beach. We got back a little before 2 pm, and so I read until 4 when all the volunteers met at the lab again and spent the next 2 hours learning how to work the equipment for Wednesday onward, when we’ll be taking water samples. It was long, dull, and the water snapper kept breaking.
I forgot to mention: today was my first kitchen duty day. That means the people I’m grouped with (Julia, Connie and Richard) and I do all the dishes and pots and pans. That took longer than I expected though, because you do the breakfast dishes, then pack lunch, then at dinner, the dinner dishes as well as the cooking tins, pans, pots and so on. I’m blissfully free for the remainder of the evening. I wrote 3 letters to have sent out in e-mail to various people, keeping them short because Kathleen seemed angry about my asking and told me that the staff had better things to do than type our correspondence which even I could have told her. I don’t know if it’s the heat and I’m sunstroked but she makes me mad . . . just angry.
Pulled another weather witching pathetic fallacy. After that heated discussion with Kathleen over e-mail, the wind turned much stronger and clouds moved in with a threat of rain, but it held off. *sigh. Perhaps the weather doesn’t agree with our emotions. What if it’s the other way around?
HMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…………..
7/22/02
9:45pm
Kept hopping, as usual. Woke up at the regular time, still dreading the day’s work to come. I ate two helpings of breakfast which was bland French toast. Then I made sure I had all the things I needed in my pack and helped load up the truck and hopped into the back before there was no space remaining (the people left over had to ride bikes to the marina). Drove bouncily to the marina where we unloaded the truck and split into a group of seven and science who went with Kathleen and a group of six and snorkels (and me) who went with Lester. Kathleen told us that Lester drove like a maniac and that we’d all get wet. I don’t think any of us believed her. I was expecting spray. Anyway, none of us really got wet; we got SOAKED! When we reached Poison Point, we hopped off the boat into 3 feet of algified water (I made that up: there’s no such word as “algified”) and waded to shore with the equipment. It was HOT! Unfortunately, I was on the plant team. Kathleen and Bridgett spent about a half hour searchinf before finding a “suitable spot” for the transect. From the Damselfish project, they would have had you believe that a transect was a randomly chosen course. Apparently that’s not true on this project. Anyway, I found a lot of pretty shells while waiting for them and got very hot and sweaty in the process. Once we started the actual transect, things got hotter. We had to wear long pants to avoid being bitten by bugs. Personally, I was a bit more worried about plants like poisonwood, but I sprayed myself with bug spray anyway. I feel so stupid now, and rather angry too; I went and left that bug spray out in the open where anyone could see it. Lester, in his infinite wisdom of hacking a path with his machete, stirred up a yellow jacket nest. He got stung a few times and came out of the forest and saw my “OFF deep woods: makes you invisible to bugs!” bug spray. I’m very angry about this, because this turns against me two ways. Anyway, he saw the spray and I immediately announced to Kathleen that he was going to spray the nest with it to kill them, obviously thinking that the spray was from the shared team kit. I quickly realized this, correcting him and claiming the spray as my own (my only bug repellant left, and only half of the can of that!) and that it was bug repellant, not insecticide. Kathleen was harsh and hasty in her return statement that they would use it if Lester wanted to and would take me into town sometime soon that I might buy some more for myself. They took my spray. I feel like crying. It’s just not decent, and so unfair. I feel I dislike Kathleen more each day, and I’m very upset that I feel that way.
The bug repellant just made the wasps angrier. Duh. Bu because of the circumstances, I couldn’t say “I told you so.” So I identified and counted those stupid plants Kathleen loves so much. I think perhaps our clash is that I want to like her, but I just can’t. It’s somewhat like Jackie and my mom. They can’t help it, neither can I.
After surveying plants for 2 ½ hours, I ate a crumbly cheese sandwich made from the same bread that the French toast was made from. I think the bread had been preserved too long, for more of it ended up on the ground than in my stomach. After lunch, we loaded up the boats again and sailed to the other side of the point where we were to do yet another transect. BLEH Thank gods for Julia’s fear of deep water. *sigh. She didn’t want to swim in the deep and sent an open offer to the entire group to trade jobs. I switched with her and collected algae for the next 1 ½ hours. Much nicer than collecting land plants.
On the way back, one of Lester’s engines died. So we chugged along slowly, and the trip that had taken us 30 wet minutes before now took us what felt like an eternity in the hot, dry sun, but was, in actuality, 75 minutes. But they were painful minutes. The salinity of the water was 40%! We had salt everywhere. Finally, 11/12 of the way to the marina, Kathleen and Dan came in a little outboard motor boat and picked up Prentiss, Kate, Vanessa, Joann, and Eve. But not me and not Julia. I was very angry. When we finally got into the marina, Kathleen and Dan were just sitting with a bag full of hapi mix at the picnic table eating while we unloaded everyone else’s crap. I was in a really sour mood. I think I still am.
Julia and I put all the gear near the Subaru and were ready to go. We asked Kathleen (still eating at the picnic table) when we were going to go. She said we’d go in a bit and if I was in such a hurry that I should take a bike. Well, that’s as good as a challenge. I can’t wait for her because that would prove how lazy I truly am, regardless of how exhausted I was at the moment. So I took a bike, but there were no helmets. Whatever, I’ll ride anyways. Hop on the bike. The handle bars fell off! Well, not actually . . . they swung down about a foot and weren’t much good at that point. I fixed it and went on my grumpy way in the hot afternoon sun. It was about 4:30pm
7/23/03
Delay: Kate started complaining about my light (which was already facing the wall). She did again before we went to bed tonight so the world knows of her plight. Tonight I write from the common room.
Let’s continue: After I arrived back at the school, I took a shower and was then ushered downstairs where I was required for about 45 minutes to make tinfoil boats and labeling them for algae sorting and weighing. That was actually kind of fun. I’d never want to actually sort the algae, but making the tinfoil boats for baking it was quite enjoyable . . . a bit like going back to second grade.
After that, dinner, which was chili and corn. I had 1 helping of each (I would have had more corn, but there wasn’t any left). The chili wasn’t at all spicy, but wasn’t very fascinating to eat. Perhaps I simply found the dinner conversation stuffy. I remember feeling slightly claustrophobic at the time. *shrug.
After the slideshow, Eve, Julia, Prentiss, and Kate went to look (at what I thought was the sunset but was obviously something else), biking to
I spent 2 sessions in the Bahamas with a coastal survey study (tedious work, yet greatly gratifying). Volunteers come from around the globe but come in especially high volume from the U.S., Britain, and Hong Kong. A link will be included at the bottom of this page to access the Earthwatch site for more information. I encourage everyone to at least consider it.
Amazing times ahead!