November 2, 2005

Well happy November everybody!  I’ve meant to write this note for awhile but the days keep slipping by.  So, things have been busy at our little center.  We had a rather exciting week back in October.  There was a funeral- I am not sure who passed away but there were many visitors on the island and there were interesting bells ringing for a day.  My two fellow interns had birthdays and then there was a massive party on the following Saturday celebrating either a birthday or a christening or possibly both.  I am fairly certain that all of the adults on this island were at this party.  It was quite crazy and proved to be a most excellent time.

We actually had a five-day break and my visitor Matt and I spent the time hiking and snorkeling around the island and making good food, including homemade pretzels.  Mmmmmm.  Now break is over and we have started up our second half of the fall semester and my last hoorah.  Halloween was fun.  We had a small gathering of students and punch out on our volleyball court.  People dressed up and I was quite proud and impressed with everyone.  I made a dress out of a trash bag (sounds rather unimpressive but it was truly the best dress ever) and we ate some candy.

The directed research projects which the students are conducting are also in full swing.  Every afternoon they go out and collect data.  As an intern, I rotate through the projects so I get an idea of everything that is going on.  For example, yesterday we caught a bunch of blue tang in a net and then tagged them with little colored beads (imagine grabbing a fish out of a tub, poking it with a giant needle, stringing a thread through it, punching it with another hole and then taking it back to a “safe” place in the reef where it won’t get immediately consumed by a barracuda).  Today, I went out with the sea turtle group and we actually caught a sea turtle.  It was so incredibly neat.  I have never seen a sea turtle up close.  Their skin is actually soft, despite their scales, and they have beautiful eyes.  The turtle freaked out when we caught it and tried swimming along the ground- it also did some mighty air swimming.  We measured him, named him Chester and released him- he sighed, hissed and bit one of the students.  It was all very exciting (and much more exciting than all of the other times that we have gone out and NOT caught turtles).

    We have two interesting field excursions coming up.  The first is an overnight trip to Grand Turk and Salt Cay- The “Turks” half of the Turks and Caicos.  I am quite excited about this trip.  The other trip will be a longer excursion to North, Middle and East Caicos- we will be hiking across these three islands.  This will certainly be an ordeal but an adventure nonetheless.  My biggest concern is how I am going to carry enough water for the trip and I hope that the weather will be relatively cool and the bugs will be merciful.  You’ll be hearing from me again after this adventure.  Then, we’ll be on the home stretch of my South Caicos adventure and it will almost be time for me to return to the US.  I hope that fall is treating all of you well.  We have cooler weather and water and now that the time has changed it gets dark much earlier (so I no longer have to decide whether I’d rather watch the sun set or eat dinner).

Ok, more next time!

Brooke