Yesterday morning, my partner and I went for a snorkel to work on
our projects on mangrove roots.  The
water was as still as glass and the sun’s rays shined down to the sandy
floor.  As we went to our last site
before lunch, I saw a seahorse drifting in and out of the roots.  This is the second time that I saw that
seahorse there; it was so delicate yet so graceful.  I was happy to see it there again because I
really love seahorses; they are very interesting to observe, especially in
their own habitat. 

    After lunch, the
class went on a trip to Cranbrooke botanical gardens.  The first thing I saw when I got out of the
bus was many peacocks; they were all over the place, even on the roofs of the
buildings.  One of them let its feathers
out and it was very colorful and we were all standing there watching it for a
little while.  We also saw a doctor bird,
which is Jamaica’s national bird; it looked like a hummingbird.  We started our mile long walk through a trail
and saw flowers of every color, palm trees, orange trees, cocoa trees, and lime
trees.  The scenery was absolutely
breathtaking, and it felt like we were in a jungle with the canopy of trees
lying over us with the sun peeking through. 

         We were walking
parallel to a river the whole way, and I was watching the blue water
crashing and flowing down the river the whole time I was walking.  One of my favorite parts was when we came to
the white flowers that are edible.  I ate
one along with the rest of the class, and it tasted like sour apple.  I got caught up behind everyone taking
pictures of everything, most of which I haven’t seen before.  The hibiscus flowers were my favorite flowers
to see; they were fuchsia pink and were hanging down.  The last part of the trail we arrived to made
the trip; we came to the part of the waterfall where we went swimming.  The water was trickling down from the rocks
into the calm pool-like area where we were enjoying the cool, crisp,
freshwater.  I jumped off the rocks several
times; it was a ton of fun.  I also
jumped off with my two friends at the same time.  The water was a little chilly at first, but
it felt good after the walk in the hot, humid weather.  Cranbook was gorgeous, and I had a great time
and couldn’t have asked for better weather on this beautiful day.

-Kayla Kraker

After my Pear
Tree dive site mishap on the 16^th (I threw up waiting on the boat
for Brad to finish surveying sponge tiles) I am ashamed to admit I was
reluctant to dive again. I missed the dive yesterday and as a result missed the
dolphins, the sort of quintessential Jamaican experience for some. I instead
chose to sleep in and do some work for my project I had been putting off.
Yesterday for the most part was spent doing research projects in and around the
lagoon. I know some people went out over the reef crest where the waves break
before entering the lagoon and were pleased to see a sea turtle hanging around
out there.

It seems odd to
me that this trip will have to end at some point, as if now that I’ve been here
we’ll always be here. We all seemed to adjust so quickly that the previous
weeks of vacation seem as removed as any from years previous or high school.
Most of the projects people are doing have become stable enough to allow for
brief setup periods followed by waiting. My personal project has to do with
examining the relationship between Porcelain Crabs and Anemones, and now that
the bulk of the collecting anemones and crabs have been completed, it is only a
matter of setting up the specific numbers of each and observing the reactions.
Overall tensions seem low, people are friendly and everyone seems to be getting
along well. I sense a vibe from those with significant others back home that
they are getting lonely; however, I think that those without feel as though
they could spend months here and feel at home. I noticed that the phantom cell
phone vibration in my pocket has stopped and I am trying to take that as a sign
that I am now almost completely “unplugged” (not to sound too matrix-esque).
The lifestyle here is just so different form how I live at home, without any TV
or electronic distractions [Ed: except for each student spending lots of time on facebook…]  I find myself really able to just sit and relax. I
have looked at the stars every night they have been out since being here and
seen a multitude of shooting stars.

Today I finally
built up the courage to go scuba diving again and had my deepest dive yet. It was pretty exciting to see some of the bigger reef fish that are
absent from this area. And when we were not looking at the reef creatures we
amused ourselves. It was a nice dive and a good way to get over my slight
fear of puking again. Anyways the blog is due in fifteen minutes so….

– Max

Today
was different from all of the other days that we’ve been in Jamaica because we
went on a boat ride to Rio Bueno to go snorkeling. Some of us went scuba
diving. It was really cool to see the difference between Discovery Bay &
Rio Bueno.  At Rio Bueno the water was
blue- er & there were more variety of corals & fish that I saw. It
looked more like what I expected coral reefs to look like. It was like jumping
into one of those under water calendars & experiencing the coral reefs in
person instead of just seeing pictures of them. It was so relaxing just
floating in the water watching the fish swim by.

            On the way back from Rio Bueno, the
fresh air & the sea spray definitely felt refreshing after swimming, we saw
a pod of bottlenose dolphins swimming through the waves. It was so cool! I’ve
never seen them in the wild so close before & it’s one of the once in a
life time opportunities.

            Unfortunately we couldn’t sit there
all day watching the dolphins… as much as we would have wanted to. We have our
research projects that have to get done & our time is almost up working on
them. Not to mention that we also have to present what we’ve done so far on
them tonight.

– Sarah D.

The weather could not have been
better for diving today. I’d never been on a wall dive before, so I was pretty
excited to dive at Rio Beuno, which I was told is one of the best diving sites
in the area. The visibility was without a doubt the best we’ve experienced so
far and with virtually no wave action to toss us around it made for the best
dive of the trip so far. It was nice to get out of the lab for the day and
finally get to dive. After the dive we all snorkeled around the boat for a
little while and got to see a couple flounders and eels. Just when we thought
that was all we could see in one outing, we were leaving the anchor site in our
boats a pod of wild dolphins started circling our boat, the Scomber.  It was hard to tell
what happened after that, but people from the other boat told us the pod swam
back at us and then dove right before they got back to us.

It’s too bad that Debbie and I had
to change our project a couple days before hand because of poor weather conditions
that we thought would prevent us from diving regularly. On the bright side
however, our back up plan for our project is progressing very well. We
currently have twelve Diadema sea urchins in three tanks that we’re feeding
various genera of algae under different light conditions. We haven’t been able
to make as many measurements as we’d like to yet because we need to measure dry
weights instead of wet weights, but from just eyeing our specimens we believe
we’re getting the results we want.

Sumo finds a lionfish at Pear Tree.

As the days keep passing, I'm
slowly coming to a realization that my adventures in paradise are slowly coming
to an end. The pressure from completing my research project definitely does not
help my case. My group and I have moved onto Plan C with our experiment, which
basically is what we planned for Plan A (but I'd rather call it Plan C, so I
don't feel like I wasted time). I know other groups have had some difficulties
come up as well, but we all help each other out…whether it's searching for
Aplysia dactylomela (sea hares, for those less informed) in late evening hours,
or just an accompanying snorkeling buddy. It must be the Jamaican air that
fused us into a well-knit community.

As my day started off on Monday, I
had no idea what was in store. I remember stepping out onto my balcony
overlooking the shore to greet the morning air and reflect on the water about
my project. I remember thinking to myself that the waves were finally calm
enough for us to video tape underwater to start getting some results. When I
got to breakfast, I was informed that there was going to be a diving adventure
in Rio Bueno. "Great, I hope I can come!", I thought to myself, as a
D.I.T. (diver in training). When I finally saw and asked Anthony, our very
laid-back, friendly diving instructor, whether I can go, he just looked at me
and said, "OF COURSE!!". I, obviously, was elated.

On the boat, I managed to pick a
seat that was a guaranteed "Get soak to the bone" seat (there and
back!). While there, the snorkelers, divers and the 3 DITs split off. Us, DITs,
stayed with Anthony to practice some bouyancy pointers and ascending. After
that, we explored a coral reef wall. It was probably the most amazing thing I
could have ever imagined. I swam well around and it felt so official. I was a
mermaid. I had schools of fish swimming next to me and I touched all types of
sponges (that I knew were safe to touch through our lecture on sponges by lovely
TA Amber, obviously!).

– Margaret

Today  Lawrence and I decided to swim out to the reef crest
right after breakfast when the water was still calm. After swimming for a bit
longer than I expected, we finally arrived at a spot where West Indian sea eggs
where abundant, to catch the urchins we had a simple but effective technique,
using a spoon I would throw the spiky sea urchin up into the water while
Lawrence would catch them using a net bag. Before long we had 25 sea eggs to
swim back with, this made the swim back twice as long and twice as hard because
our hands were full this time. After finally making it back to shore we put the
sea eggs in a tank and headed to lunch. After lunch we collected some turtle
grass (sea grass) from around the lagoon and then we ran into a problem. We
need to use a scanner to be able to measure the sea grass but after hours of
installing different software and drivers we could not get it to work with our
computers. After fiddling with the computers for about 2 hours we went outside
to discover that was the most beautiful day we’ve had here in Jamaica so we
decided to go snorkeling with the rest of the class. In the clear blue water we
were able to see lots of marine life; some of the more adventurous students
(Josh and Max) were even able to catch a balloon fish and a poisonous lion
fish. After dinner boredom began to set in so we decided to play a game of hide
and go seek which didn’t last were long. Afterward everyone headed to bed and
that was the end of another beautiful day in Jamaica.

Catching Sea
eggs

-Nick

When you’re in the Caribbean one would usually expect warm sunny weather all day every day, with the occasional storm. Up until yesterday the idea seemed like a long shot and many were beginning to dread returning from sunny Jamaica without a tan. The idea was horrifying. Yesterday, however, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and the tanning began. [Ed: or in some cases burning] Today was another of those days, but without the sudden, random, and over in a minute rain shower in the afternoon. The day, for slackers like me, began at 9:30 and already the sunshine was blaring. [Ed: We do not encourage such slacking.]

After about an hour snorkeling out in the mangroves and carrying plastic zip lock bags full of seawater under my arms for our research project came a lunch of spaghetti with meat sauce for the non-vegetarians, salad, and fruit. I should have gone back out into the water later for more measurements but with one group member having a blistered foot and myself with a chest cough and clogged sinuses, the afternoon was instead spent working on my sunburn and evening out the tiger stripes on my arms and blotches on my legs that resulted from poor sunscreen application two days ago. I’ve since learned to apply sunscreen liberally and evenly over my skin, rather than a less time consuming slap-and-smear technique.

I thought the afternoon was going well up until maybe 2 or so when the ice cream man showed up on his bike. Then it was official. The older Jamaican man sat eating fried chicken while he served us “Napoleon” flavored ice cream for 100 Jamaican dollars each. Now, I’m fairly sure that vanilla chocolate strawberry ice cream is actually called Neapolitan ice cream, but I’ll overlook that little detail. I also noticed that anyone attempting to pay with American paid nearly double as he asked for $2 American, roughly $170 Jamaican. 

With only a week left here in Jamaica, every day becomes more valuable for working on our projects and hopefully getting off of the compound a couple more times, and with the weather finally behaving, things are looking promising. 

-Melissa

Debbie and the ice cream man

Today was ironically probably my most ambitious day of activities and events, ironic that I would get the chance to share this with everyone. So the last few days have been pretty lax, since finishing the [lecture portion of the class] work I have found it difficult to get any work done mostly because of weather conditions. My project along with Josh involves measuring changes in sponge growth in different reef sites along the coast using last year’s data from our resident TA Amber. Who by the way has been very helpful in learning how to catalogue and identify sponges. Anyways we decided that given accurate weather reports of low wind conditions from yesterday we would be allowed to tag along with Prof. Brad and Amber to one of the sites and see if we (Josh and I) could both prove useful to them and also start our project which at this point was starting to seem less and less possible to complete. 

Loathe as I was to awaken at seven (especially after the late night bonfire on the jetty shooting out into the bay) I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed and put my gear together in the morning rain. Our departure was not much better as wind and rain kept the sea rolling with swells and white caps as we attempted to exit the bay; however, it was better (I was told) than their previous three mornings. We stood on the deck as we motored out to sea in our little boat cresting over the waves and bouncing through the troughs, all the while screaming classic rock songs over the wind and rain. We arrived 20 minutes later or so and Amber and I quickly suited up, hopped overboard, and with little effort managed to complete one of the several surveys Amber needs for her thesis, as Josh and Brad bided their time above water. When we returned to the surface 40 minutes later I noticed Josh had undone his wet suit and was sitting a little awkwardly on the side of the boat looking green. He had unfortunately thrown up most of the contents of his breakfast in the intervening time.  I also began to feel rather uncomfortable. Within a few minutes of surfacing I too managed to regret eating anything before heading out. All in all it was successful in the sense that our combined semi-digested breakfasts managed to attract the resident sea turtle Herbert to the scene who surfaced only a few feet off the port stern.

    The rest of the day has been a bit hazy due to the synergistic effects of dehydration and sleep deprivation. I have managed little other constructiveness, besides getting increasingly sunburned, taking a nap, and deciding that perhaps our project should not involve two dives per day at the risk of never holding down a meal. 

    Overall everyone enjoyed the post noon, balmy weather, and the multiple rainbows that appeared throughout the day. Most projects are coming along as far as I can tell and everyone seems to be in high spirits (besides Josh and me who are of course still recovering). It seems as though there is an angst starting to pervade the mood that perhaps our little vacation may end, and we will eventually have to return to the reality of not living in Jamaica; however, that said it has not become too tense yet and everyone remains excited.

Camoflauged peacock flounder on the reef.

– Max

This morning everyone started working on their research and a few had to change their ideas because of the fear of bad weather. Those of us doing their project on mangroves all went out for a group snorkel. We tagged roots, took water samples, and Kayla spotted a sea horse. It was a windy day and many of us had accepted the fact that diving and snorkeling would not be worth the effort. Eventually the wind did die down and divers and one DIT (diver in training) all went out for a dive at Columbus Park. This was my second real dive ever and I was very excited. 

We got out there, descended and regrouped at 20ft. Looking down all I could see was a deep abyss of blue but eventually and much to my surprise we touched bottom. The poor visibility wasn’t helped by the plume of re-suspended sediment kicked up by everyone. However, when we finally started to move the magnificent sponges, corals and other marine live became somewhat visible. I tried looking into sponges and crevices but the only notable thing I saw was a lizard fish, a few people saw a batfish, other than that I think the visibility was just too poor. Once we got back we went out to gather more research.  

Tangled amidst the roots of the mangroves and being harassed by the fearless dusky damsels we suddenly heard a rendition of “Ain’t no mountain high enough…” and the seriousness with which we were working was interrupted by snorkel-filtered laughter. Everyone must have been in a good mood today because the singing didn’t stop. It had started early in the morning continued through dinner, which was delicious, and right into the night. In the evening a few likeminded people had an urge to watch South Park however that urge was defeated by a beautiful fire started by Sarah. Everyone in our group stood around the fire winding down from another good day at DBML. There was singing, dancing and exchange of philosophy all of which burned throughout the night despite the extinguished fire. 

-Sumo

    Today [Ed: well, yesterday. The blogs go up the day after usually.] started with a Jamaican style breakfast that consisted of salt fish, spinach, biscuits, and peanut oatmeal with a twist. It was much creamier than oatmeal but that’s the closest I’ve ever had that comes close to that taste. After breakfast projects began to develop. My project required collecting different substrates. Sarah and I are looking at the reattachment rates of sponges on different things. So my morning was spent walking along the beach looking for flat rocks, sand, coral rubble, and garbage. We were originally going to try the reattachment rate on an algae covered rock but those are hard to find so we switched it to garbage which is sadly much more common. By lunch we had our wet lab stations set up and ready to go. Because the weather hasn’t been the best for diving we unfortunately couldn’t start our project. We didn’t have any sponges yet. 

Collecting some rocks from the shore.

    The sun came out in the afternoon which brought everyone out to the water. Whether they were lying out on the grass or snorkeling, people were definitely taking full advantage of the sun. The divers went out at 3 because some projects required diving and the weather could no longer hold them back. I visited the back reef looking for sponges but had no luck. I have never been to the back reef, however, and I didn’t care that there were no sponges. Everything was so much greener and there were so many more fish compared to in the lagoon. The long swim out was definitely worth it. When we were getting out a full rainbow stretched across the sky. The day ended with a bonfire. We saw a huge tanker leave the bauxite mine next door to our lab and admired the hundreds of stars that are washed out by New York’s city lights.

-Allegra