Yesterday was one of my best days in Jamaica. We embarked on a trip to the Ultimate Jerk restaurant, the Grotto and had a night boat ride. Grotto is a network of limestone caves. At the grotto I learned and explored various Jamaican history beginning with the English and Spanish conflict, the dark slave history of Jamaica and the significant role the Grotto caves played in these histories. At the Grotto we learned that Spanish general used the cave as an escape route without light to escape British soldiers who sought to kill him. Also, we learned that most slaves used the similar tunnels to tread for freedom. The mini lecture on slaves moved me and informed me more on the dark history of the island. We ended our trip to the Grotto on a sweet note at the Ultimate Jerk, a restaurant to eat delicious Jamaican cuisine. I had the opportunity to try jerk chick and rice & pea.

Standing in one of the caves tunnel a Spanish military general used to escape from British soldiers

As if our day couldn’t get even more better, we had the opportunity to boat around the surrounding bays in the night. Whiles speeding on the boat, we saw different fish jumping out of the water. Yesterday will forever remain one of the best days in my life and I am so glad to come on this study abroad trip to Jamaica.

Paul , Pie

Growing up, the true genius of the short story “Examination Day” by Henry Slesar, was almost completely lost on me. It details a young boy, in a not so distant future, preparing for a government mandated intelligence test. The twist comes in the final paragraph where it is revealed that the people are being ruled over by a totalitarian government and the young boy was deemed “too intelligent” to be able to continue to live. As I got older, this became a story I continuously came back to, admiring the subtle world building skills and drawing parallels to our own everyday lives.

The time had come to have an examination day of our own. Several similar variables immediately stood out as my classmates and I walked through the ever-present haze of stress. Like in “Examination Day,” there was a deep fear of a larger force acting upon us negatively if we scored a certain way, as well as the small flicker of determined optimism brought on by continuous studying, and finally, the inevitability of the whole situation hung over us like the shadow of a noose.

That shadow dragged on and took on equally terrifying new forms as the designated time for our exam passed. Then fifteen minutes, a half hour, an hour. Worst-case scenarios popped in and out of our minds like bubbles, and among those floated in the occasional best case scenario, “if our professors aren’t here there’s no way we can have this test”.

Both professors and our graduate level teaching assistant were somewhere out in the great wide ocean, furthering the knowledge of the scientific community. We, on the other hand, had been left to our devices. Those devices appealed to logos at first, with myself and my classmates using our extra time to cement the necessary scientific names into our brains. However, as the hour stretched into two that appeal faltered. Soon we wandered aimlessly, still with that burning fear in the back of our minds but somehow, that hypothetical failure was no longer enough. Just as soon as we had gotten comfortable the familiar sound of a boat rudder overpowered the light breeze. They were coming back.

My classmates and I gathered together down by the docks and did our best to appear intimidating as our professors shuffled out onto the hard sand-colored rock. Our best reasoning for why we should either postpone or outright cancel our exam was quickly shot down, and fifteen minutes later we all sat in our classroom, pencils in hand, anxiety rising in our chests.

The tale of our first examination day in Jamaica ended on a more positive note than in the story of the same name. I did not lose any of my fellow classmates because they scored too far on either end of the spectrum. Instead, after the ordeal was over and we were given our results, we gleefully passed them around over dinner. The average had been much higher than expected. And our white papers wasted no time putting smiles on their owners faces.

We do not yet live in a world where intellectual ability in annihilated on the basis of sheer fear. Even though our own fear had spread like the plague throughout the halls of the laboratory earlier in the day, when the cool of night settled in, we praised each other for our abilities. For our shortcomings. For the recognition of everyone’s strengths and weaknesses and the sheer awe of how much we had committed to memory in the span of less than a day.

One of the many species my classmates and I had memorize the names for. This particular one is a Casseopiea frondosa, an upside-down jellyfish.

Sadly, we are nearing the end to our trip. Things are really picking up here in Discovery Bay, and everyone’s feeling the heat. Despite our school stress and sunburns, most of us have found that working in such a beautiful environment has really helped anyone from blowing their top (yet). If you take a moment to walk down the boardwalk, watch the lizards, or wake up for the sunrise, you can sit for just a moment and appreciate that you’re here in Jamaica, and not braving the 20 degree wind chill back in New York.

A 6am sunrise over Discovery Bay

Despite the tensions and studying, Brad offered (convinced) us to venture out on a dive in the afternoon to a canyon about 20 minutes away. Once I saw the flying fish gliding along past the boat, I knew I had made the right choice to go. We had been studying all day for other tests we needed to take a break. Sometimes its hard to look past the coursework backbone and take advantage of being here when you have limited time and lots of work to do. We are Stony Brook students of course; we are expected to go “Far Beyond” and do so fervently.

The ride was rough, but the dive was probably the best we have taken so far. Besides the impeccable variation of wildlife, swimming over a canyon is like jumping off of a cliff, and floating across. Peering down into a 200 foot drop, I couldn’t quite grasp that the bottom was in fact down there somewhere. It made it a lot more believable to me that we know more about the stars in the sky than the bottom of the ocean.

-Sascha Starfruit

Tonight, a couple of us went night snorkeling. The mangroves and the crest can barely be made out from the edge of the dock. Looking down with my flashlight, I can see the diadema crawling along the side of the dock at the surface of the water. I quickly put on my snorkel gear and jumped into the water as Nick followed right behind. We both moved slowly with our flashlights on because it was very dark. The silversides were darting back and forth through our lights as we moved through the dark. It was another world at night. The urchins and squirrelfish were more active. The diadema and lytechinus were crawling about munching on algae. There were a bunch of worms about one foot or more crawling about. As we sawm to deeper water, we began to come across more beautiful creatures. Hiding in crevices were a couple of spiny lobsters, one big and one small.

Two spiny lobsters under a rock

A couple of meters away from the lobsters was a big yellow stingray sitting on top of some Thalassia. I shone the light on top of it and it didn’t move, giving me the perfect opportunity to take a photo.

Yellow stingray laying on Thalassia.

Before departing the ray, I gave it a little pet on the nose. The ray was not the only thing we saw. We saw many small common octopus. When we shine the lights on them, they change colors. They change to a blue, green, and brown mix. They put on a fantastic display changing colors as we got closer to look at them. Going on the night dive has been the best experience I had here. I plan to do one more night snorkel before we have to leave.

Lemon Lucas

The Balloon Fish just hanging out by the docks. Photo Credit: Lucus

As the last few days come and go, we are all preparing for the end of this trip and of this class. These past two days we have mostly been working on some group project Dr. Warren and Dr. Peterson gave to the class. One having to do with transects and the other having to do with sorting through sediments and finding how much diversity there is in even small sections of the ocean. We also had out Identification test yesterday. We were all pretty nervous at first but it was not as nerve racking as we thought it would be and now I know that a Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber’s scientific name is Holothuria mexicana. After the test today, everyone mostly just relaxed and started to study for our test on the course material, which is today. While studying together on the dock, a group of us saw a cute Balloon fish (Diodon holocanthus). It wasn’t scared of us and even came up to our hands when we would lightly splash the water. It even let us pet it. It was a good break from all of the stress and anxiety placed on us these past few days.

-Julia

Today is the culmination of everyone’s stress and fatigue; some of us are suffering from mental breakdowns, bone injuries, accidental soiled wetsuits, and even bloody noses, however, we all continue to laugh and dance it all off with a smile. Today we started off the day getting up at 6:30am for early snorkeling and dives which was a blessing compared to previously getting up at 5:30am. Then after breakfast, we finished any missing data for our transects by measuring diadema, parrot fish, surgeon fish, and bottom cover. Following data collection, we had lunch and a couple of us went on either research dives, contributed to organization of data sites consisting of seagrass or clams, continued to study for our ID test tomorrow until dinner, and played with a sea turtle near the mangrove nursery.

A sea turtle eating a jellyfish, Cassiopea frondosa, which was found by divers and placed into the nursery because it was blind.

At dinner, those who had been participating in dives, snorkeling, or ID presentations were overwhelmed with the lectures and ID’s they had to catch up on. The ID project entails that students remember the Phyla, Classes, Genus, and Species of invertebrates, plants, and algae typically found in Discovery Bay, Jamaica. We’ve managed to survive this stress by playing jeopardy, using funny pneumonics, singing songs, doing pushups for wrong answers, and playing hangman. However, I don’t think we would have made it through this trip without our kitchen cooks, Mrs. Precious and Mrs. June, because they always lightened up our anxiety with DESSERT! It’s the perfect way to end to the day and it always keeps us going. Thus, although we are experiencing overwhelming stress right now for our ID test tomorrow, we will eventually look back on our stress as rewarding and prize ourselves with Dessert at the end of the day.

– Sydney

Today was filled with adventure despite the stress of schoolwork. We had gone on a dive at Dairy Bull reef earlier in the morning and saw a sea turtle. Back on dry land we began to feel the heat of assignments and upcoming exams. To cool off we ventured out on a dive in the afternoon. Our professor Brad told us about a cavern that had a unique feature, so we headed there to see what it had to offer us. We rounded up a bunch of divers and made a speedy getaway to our location. With all of us geared up, we began our descent and made our way towards the cavern. As we were approaching, the sunlight that was trickling down on us became obscured. I looked up in shock to find massive fish larger than my head circling around us. Bermuda Chubs were schooling all around us trying to see what we were and if we brought any treats for them. My fear melted away into awe as I watched these monstrous fish dance around us. They were so close that I was able to reach out and touch them as they swam past.

Our new friends, the Bermuda Chub (Kyphosus sectatrix)

The Chubs followed us on our journey to the secret spot my professor was raving about. At 50ft down there was a birdbath with benches in a circle that were anchored to the bottom. In the birdbath was a collection of bottles that were weighed down, so they wouldn’t float away. It was as if someone knew we were headed there and left out some refreshments for us. My friends and I decided it was the perfect place to relax from all our hard work and had ourselves a drink.

Here’s to a great day in Jamaica

-Siobhan

Yesterday on the 15th I was trying to take it easy in the water and hit the books to work on studying and some assignments we have in our last few days in Discovery Bay. That didn’t last long…. Hesitant at first to go on a dive, Professor Peterson reminded me to have some fun and that I wouldn’t regret going out on the boat- and he wasn’t wrong! On the way to explore a new dive site we rode through a school of flying fish. Although I don’t have any pictures of the experience, I can only explain it as I thought it was a bunch of birds gliding along the water. The flying fish can glide very far, and their “wings” actually resemble a birds fairly well.

I didn’t spot any flying fish underwater, but 40 feet below rather I saw a large diversity of other fish and was not disappointed. One fish I haven’t seen before yesterday was called a “chub” (Kyphosus sectatrix) and they were very friendly. Once they saw a group of us divers they schooled around us and swam side by side with me and my dive buddies. I assume they believed we were large predators and they’d get scraps from us, but they stayed with us nonetheless when they didn’t get any food.

A picture my friend, Siobhan, took of me with a school of Chubs.

After finding an arrow crab (Stenorhynchus seticornis), my dive buddies and I took turns passing him around. Seemingly content with being handled we took some pictures. Arrow crabs are one of the few species of crabs I don’t mind handling because their pinchers are too small to cause any damage. They are often smaller and blend in really well to the rocks and crevices, so spotting one is always fun.

Siobhan is great at taking pictures of us all while diving and captured another great sot of me holding my arrow crab friend.

After the dive we headed back to the boat, all in great spirits! Siobhan was taking a picture of me at the surface with a beautiful resort behind me, but I got photobombed by Professor Peterson as he was snorkeling by. I won’t complain- it’s not everyday someone gets to go diving with and photobombed by their professor snorkeling by!

Professor Peterson photobombing my surface picture after a great dive.

– Kayla

There’s about four more days left of this journey and tensions are a bit high. We are all a little bit irritable because of all the assignments due and upcoming examinations. There’s been a higher frequency of arguments between the students this week. I guess we are driving each other a bit crazy lately. Memorizing the scientific names and identifying dozens of species can put a lot of people under pressure and I totally understand that. However, I really wish people weren’t so stressed. I mean, we are in Jamaica! Peace, love, and respect, mon! In retrospect, we have had so many great adventures. I’ve gotten awesome footage of climbing waterfalls and snorkeling over reefs. I’ve been making so many great friends and meeting many different new people. The employees working at Discovery Bay Marine Lab are probably some of the nicest people I’ve ever met, a lot nicer than people I’ve met in New York City!

I am kind of sad that this adventure is coming to an end. I’ve been having so much fun. I am very happy to be going home, though. I miss my friends, my family, and my dogs so much. However, I am not missing the snow! It’ll probably take me a while to adjust back to the cold weather, but at least I’ll have a nice tan to last me throughout the rest of the harsh winter! I am very thankful to have had this experience. Although I might feel a little bit stressed now, I know that in a few months I will look back and only remember the great times I had on this trip. Maybe someday I will come back to Jamaica and be able to impress my friends and family with my extensive knowledge of Tropical Marine Ecology!

Here is a picture of a sponge with my friends Lucas, Avocado Andrew and Asparagus Andrew in the background.

– Emily

Hi everyone! The past couple of days have been so busy! Today we went to the east coast of discovery bay on a snorkel trip around 7am and we got to see a lot of hydrocorals and fish. It’s an awesome experience to be able to look at all of the different parts of discovery bay and get to see the differences.

Morning Boat Ride!

In the afternoon a few of the other students and I were invited on a research excursion to help collect sediments for analysis later today. It was so much fun to go out and practice the field work! As a molecular biology student this trip has provided both a relaxing yet also thrilling change of pace. As the winter semester comes to a close and the final projects are starting to be submitted, I can’t help but I think how much I am going to miss my little Stony Brook family! It was such an honor to be picked to go on this trip. Everyone has become so close over such a short period of time and I have already begun making future plans to visit the friends I’ve made here in Long Island!

Until then!
• Andrew B.