We found out our DRs yesterday, I'm working with AJ on a project that looks at the designation of parts of Isla Magdalena as a Marine Protected Area (MPA). The fishing cooperative got together and decided that they've overfished the area and want to close certain portions to allow it to recover. This specific sub-project would look at how the cooperative works with NGOs and government agencies to create the MPA. The other project of AJ's is looking at "Surfonomics," or the economic and cultural effects of surfing tourism on communities. There's apparently a lot of really good surfing in Baja, and fairly close to us. I'll find out soon, since some of us are spending a good amount of our break in Todos Santos at a surf hotel.
There was a lot of anxiety about the DRs, everyone got at least their 2nd choice, but some people really had their hearts set on a certain project and were pretty upset when they didn't. It's funny, I would have been equally happy with any of the professors, but now I'm really really glad that I got AJs.
The whole day was pretty much filled with DR stuff. AJ met with each subgroup (mine has Lindsey and Bailey in it) to discuss what to look at, then we spent the rest of the day doing literature searches. I wish I was back on the Pitt network so I was permanently logged in to all the databases. It's a real pain in the butt to have to try to remote log in to either Boston Univ (SFS's home institution) or Pitt before accessing anything. I'm really sick of looking at papers though.
Today we had another scallop field exercise, where we threw PVC squares into the water and snorkeled to see if there were any scallops in the quadrant. My group didn't find any, again. The other group in our boat found 2, but only brought one back because the other was too small to keep. Once we got back Vero showed us how to measure and weigh all the parts. It's crazy how little of the animal we eat, maybe a tenth of it's weight, and the rest generally gets thrown out.
There was a little unrest as far as the earthquake and tsunami went, but Gustavo made sure to keep updating us. Apparently Cabo San Lucas, which is more exposed than we are, only got waves a foot taller than usual. We haven't experienced anything and aren't expected. Gustavo said that if they did predict anything for this area we'd be driven inland to Ciudad Constitucion, about an hour away. We took some time out of one of our DR classes trying to watch the tsunami live via the internet, but as anyone else who watched it knows, it was less than exciting and we eventually gave up.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Earthquake/Tsunami
Just to let everyone know, we're fine here in Mexico, we haven't experienced anything. Gustavo said that any time there's an earthquake in the Pacific there's a tsunami warning and that we shouldn't worry about it. In any case, we're fairly sheltered because of the large islands at the mouth of the bay.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Today we had a lecture from Vero on marine reserves in the Baja area. We read two interesting papers from one guy (Richard Cudney-Bueno) who studied a marine reserve for rock scallops and black murex in the Gulf of Mexico. The first looked at how to select the location of a reserve to best benefit fisheries. For example, both of theses species have free-floating larvae stages that become attached to a substrate at a certain age. You need to have the reserve located so that the larvae will drift to the area of your fishery. The second paper followed the community response to the marine reserve. I thought this was super cool because the fishing cooperative was really good at regulating itself via social punishment (disapproval, guilt etc). But when bandits began fishing in the reserve, the co-op essentially dissolved because there was no government enforcement to back them up.
We also had an interesting spanish class where we pulled subjunctive words out of spanish songs. It made me miss Sra Warda (high school spanish teacher for 3 years) because we listened to her favorite person ever, Juanes! It made me a little reminiscent, I should go back and find some way to contact her, she'd probably be really excited to know I'm studying abroad in Mexico and speaking lots of spanish.
After lunch we went into town again to conduct more interviews. We didn't get as many as last time, partly because we didn't have Brady to drive around and talk to people she knows. I'm thinking that she knows half the town. We went to the doctor's office to try to talk to a nurse, but she was out for the day, so we walked to La Roca and talked to Armida, the owner (and Poncho's sister). We asked Antonio if he would do some interviews with men, because Jenna and I thought they weren't being totally honest with us, because we're women. We were asking questions about how they feel about professional women, and we weren't getting any negative answers, but almost all of the women we talked to said that men, especially their husbands, were the largest obstacle they faced. One man told us that he thought professional women were great, and after he left his wife told us "He's a total liar! He's the reason I had to quit!" We still didn't get any real negative reactions, so that in itself is an interesting result, compared to the women's experiences.
We had to hand in our DR choices to Brady this afternoon. I ended up putting AJ first, then Vero, then Eduardo. It would be cool to do whales, but I feel like AJ's and Vero's projects have a greater effect on the people of Puerto San Carlos, and since I already know about hard science, I'd like to focus on the human aspect of conservation while I'm here. I didn't really realize that until recently, I had thought that I wanted to experience hard science in a different ecosystem with an interesting cultural component. What I've since realized is that I can do hard science in any type of area, but that SFS provides a really good opportunity to look into community involvement and motivation. I wrote in my request that no matter how many papers you publish, nothing will happen if you can't get the community involved. I'm also thinking that my "home" may be in forest ecosystems, I really miss trees here! It's great to explore something different, and that's part of why I came, to figure out where I want to go, or at least to get ideas.
We also had an interesting spanish class where we pulled subjunctive words out of spanish songs. It made me miss Sra Warda (high school spanish teacher for 3 years) because we listened to her favorite person ever, Juanes! It made me a little reminiscent, I should go back and find some way to contact her, she'd probably be really excited to know I'm studying abroad in Mexico and speaking lots of spanish.
After lunch we went into town again to conduct more interviews. We didn't get as many as last time, partly because we didn't have Brady to drive around and talk to people she knows. I'm thinking that she knows half the town. We went to the doctor's office to try to talk to a nurse, but she was out for the day, so we walked to La Roca and talked to Armida, the owner (and Poncho's sister). We asked Antonio if he would do some interviews with men, because Jenna and I thought they weren't being totally honest with us, because we're women. We were asking questions about how they feel about professional women, and we weren't getting any negative answers, but almost all of the women we talked to said that men, especially their husbands, were the largest obstacle they faced. One man told us that he thought professional women were great, and after he left his wife told us "He's a total liar! He's the reason I had to quit!" We still didn't get any real negative reactions, so that in itself is an interesting result, compared to the women's experiences.
We had to hand in our DR choices to Brady this afternoon. I ended up putting AJ first, then Vero, then Eduardo. It would be cool to do whales, but I feel like AJ's and Vero's projects have a greater effect on the people of Puerto San Carlos, and since I already know about hard science, I'd like to focus on the human aspect of conservation while I'm here. I didn't really realize that until recently, I had thought that I wanted to experience hard science in a different ecosystem with an interesting cultural component. What I've since realized is that I can do hard science in any type of area, but that SFS provides a really good opportunity to look into community involvement and motivation. I wrote in my request that no matter how many papers you publish, nothing will happen if you can't get the community involved. I'm also thinking that my "home" may be in forest ecosystems, I really miss trees here! It's great to explore something different, and that's part of why I came, to figure out where I want to go, or at least to get ideas.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Banderitas Camping Trip
So the camping trip to Banderitas went well. We piled all our things into the pangas and I got stuffed in a panga with a cooler up against my knees, which led to a very uncomfortable boat ride. The camp site is maybe 30-50 minutes away by boat in an estuary. There´s a beach and then a small cliff (maybe 6 ft high) where we actually pitched our camp. There were a ton of burrs the size of my thumbnail. If you´ve never experienced burrs, I highly suggest you NOT. They got stuck on everything and hurt like hell when you tried to pull them out. Every now and then the point would lodge in my finger, so I´ve got about 5 sore spots on my fingers from them. The campsite itself is classified as desert, with lots of dry grasses and cacti and Dr. Seuss-like trees.
At one point yesterday we went on a hike through it with Gustavo stopping every now and then to point out interesting species. Some were these cacti that are endemic (native) to Baja, which looks like they´re a dead piece just laying on the ground, but are still alive. We also saw a huge cactus that looks kind of like a saguaro but isn´t, Gustavo said it takes 100 years for it to start branching, and this probably had 7 branches to it. There was also a caracara that was building a nest on it-some kind of black and white hawk or eagle, I´m not sure what it´s English name is. At one point Gustavo stopped and told us all to back up quickly because there was a massive rattlesnake across the path. We stopped a good distance away and looked at it for a while before it started moving towards us and we had to leave. Some people were saying they wanted to hear it rattle and were wondering why it hadn´t, but we´d stopped far enough away that it didn´t feel threatened. Eventually we got to a salt flat that fills with seawater at really high tides. It was really cool, part of the water was reddish from a combination of algae and excess minerals.
We also did turtle monitoring at night, where each cabin has a shift where they have to go out in the pangas and go through the nets we put out to look for turtles. My cabin had the shit shift of 12-4, where you can´t really fall asleep early, and only have like 2 hours of sleep before you have to get up again. On top of that, it was freezing and we didn´t find any turtles. But the other groups did, 1 Monday night and 5 last night. In the morning we all got up early to measure them, mostly measurements of their shell length and width. If they had never been caught before, we also named them, tagged them, and took a skin sample. Sea turtles are really cool, their flippers are a lot less armored than I expected. Their skin really just felt like a lizard. And they´re pretty large-probably the size of my torso. And although no one got bitten, apparently they can, and do, bite really hard.
The last cool thing we did was snorkel through a rhodolith bed. Rhodoliths look like this http://vis-pc.plantbio.ohiou.edu/algaeimage/jpegs/ball.jpg and are coraline algae. They´re fairly round and depending on the area are either scattered along a sand bed or densely packed together. We saw a bunch of sealife including a couple of pufferfish, sea bass and a stingray.
As for camping in general, I think my life would be a lot happier if I could sleep better. My one roommate kind of spreads out in her sleep and she kept rolling onto my sleeping pad, which isn´t very large to begin with. It´s also not horribly comfortable. And I was too nervous about oversleeping for both turtle monitoring and measuring to put in earplugs. The burrs also really really sucked, they were everywhere and there was a constant chorus of "effing burrs!" around the campsite. We had to check our gear carefully before returning so we didn´t bring any back to the school. Overall, it felt really natural to just hang around outside a lot and not shower, and go to the bathroom behind cacti. Actually, I could do without the sharp object part, but whatever. But it was a pretty nice way to spend three days, and Gustavo said it´s the worst campsite of the semester, so things only get better.
At one point yesterday we went on a hike through it with Gustavo stopping every now and then to point out interesting species. Some were these cacti that are endemic (native) to Baja, which looks like they´re a dead piece just laying on the ground, but are still alive. We also saw a huge cactus that looks kind of like a saguaro but isn´t, Gustavo said it takes 100 years for it to start branching, and this probably had 7 branches to it. There was also a caracara that was building a nest on it-some kind of black and white hawk or eagle, I´m not sure what it´s English name is. At one point Gustavo stopped and told us all to back up quickly because there was a massive rattlesnake across the path. We stopped a good distance away and looked at it for a while before it started moving towards us and we had to leave. Some people were saying they wanted to hear it rattle and were wondering why it hadn´t, but we´d stopped far enough away that it didn´t feel threatened. Eventually we got to a salt flat that fills with seawater at really high tides. It was really cool, part of the water was reddish from a combination of algae and excess minerals.
We also did turtle monitoring at night, where each cabin has a shift where they have to go out in the pangas and go through the nets we put out to look for turtles. My cabin had the shit shift of 12-4, where you can´t really fall asleep early, and only have like 2 hours of sleep before you have to get up again. On top of that, it was freezing and we didn´t find any turtles. But the other groups did, 1 Monday night and 5 last night. In the morning we all got up early to measure them, mostly measurements of their shell length and width. If they had never been caught before, we also named them, tagged them, and took a skin sample. Sea turtles are really cool, their flippers are a lot less armored than I expected. Their skin really just felt like a lizard. And they´re pretty large-probably the size of my torso. And although no one got bitten, apparently they can, and do, bite really hard.
The last cool thing we did was snorkel through a rhodolith bed. Rhodoliths look like this http://vis-pc.plantbio.ohiou.edu/algaeimage/jpegs/ball.jpg and are coraline algae. They´re fairly round and depending on the area are either scattered along a sand bed or densely packed together. We saw a bunch of sealife including a couple of pufferfish, sea bass and a stingray.
As for camping in general, I think my life would be a lot happier if I could sleep better. My one roommate kind of spreads out in her sleep and she kept rolling onto my sleeping pad, which isn´t very large to begin with. It´s also not horribly comfortable. And I was too nervous about oversleeping for both turtle monitoring and measuring to put in earplugs. The burrs also really really sucked, they were everywhere and there was a constant chorus of "effing burrs!" around the campsite. We had to check our gear carefully before returning so we didn´t bring any back to the school. Overall, it felt really natural to just hang around outside a lot and not shower, and go to the bathroom behind cacti. Actually, I could do without the sharp object part, but whatever. But it was a pretty nice way to spend three days, and Gustavo said it´s the worst campsite of the semester, so things only get better.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Two pretty slow days for this weekend. Yesterday we had spanish class where we did more work in the dreaded subjunctive and finished watching a Spanish chick flick that was pretty predictable and fairly bad lol. Then we had a talk about Leave No Trace camping since we´re going on a three day camping trip starting tomorrow. The main points of the talk were how to reduce your impact, and how you do that differently based on whether the environment is heavily used or pristine. Another main point was how to go to the bathroom while camping, which should be...interesting. I´ve never been camping before, so it´s all new to me. Luckily I have Jenna in my cabin, who´s super outdoorsy and leads trips for her school, so I should be fine. After the talk we had to get all the gear and food together. Since my only job is to help with Monday dinner I helped José carry things from the equipment shed. After that I spent a good amount of the night finishing an essay for Martín about corruption in Mexico (bottom line: it´s pretty bad) and went out onto the beach to hang out with people after that.
Today we hired a boat to take us to the Dunas, which is kind of a island in the bay that´s just made up of dunes and beaches. We were out there for five hours just laying out, going in the ocean and playing on the big sand dunes. Jenna, Laura and I figured out that it´s pretty fun to jump down onto the dunes because it doesn´t hurt and you just kind of slide for awhile. We really loaded the boat down with too many people, so the rides to and from were painfully slow. I took a shower, but I still have sand in my ears and hair, and now we´re just waiting for mac and cheese for dinner. The cooks don´t work on Sundays, so a group of students is in charge of Sunday dinner and so far we´ve been trying to do something American each time. Last week was grilled cheese and tomato soup.
Today we hired a boat to take us to the Dunas, which is kind of a island in the bay that´s just made up of dunes and beaches. We were out there for five hours just laying out, going in the ocean and playing on the big sand dunes. Jenna, Laura and I figured out that it´s pretty fun to jump down onto the dunes because it doesn´t hurt and you just kind of slide for awhile. We really loaded the boat down with too many people, so the rides to and from were painfully slow. I took a shower, but I still have sand in my ears and hair, and now we´re just waiting for mac and cheese for dinner. The cooks don´t work on Sundays, so a group of students is in charge of Sunday dinner and so far we´ve been trying to do something American each time. Last week was grilled cheese and tomato soup.
Friday, February 19, 2010
This past week has been fairly academic-heavy, so I haven't really had a lot of time to blog. We had a paper due on Monday for Vero, then a lesson plan to do for an English class, then a project on climate change for Eduardo, and a Spanish essay due tomorrow. And among all this we had to be planning a project for AJ.
The project for AJ is kind of a mini-project to get us used to qualitative research methods, and an opportunity for us to find out more about town. Jenna and I decided to look at professional women (nurses, business owners, teachers, etc) and how they're viewed. We wrote out and translated our questions on Wednesday and today went into town with Brady to conduct interviews. I think we ended up getting 6 total, including 2 business owners, 1 seamstress, 1 pharmacy-worker and 2 men (husbands of two of the women). We have questions planned for professional women, housewives, young girls, and men. Most of the women said that they didn't really face a lot of obstacles becoming a professional, but some of them had experienced some kind of pressure from family members. And all of the women were fairly adamant that they would not feel happy or fulfilled if they were only a housewife. I think it's especially interesting because I think that's how I would feel, and I know people from home on both sides of the issue. I think we're running into problems with the men, in that for the two we interviewed their (professional) wives were in the room and I think at least one of them wasn't completely honest with us. It's also a problem that Jenna and I are both women obviously in college to have a profession, so they may just tell us what they think we want to hear. On the upshot, I understood a lot more in the interviews than I expected to. We recorded everything but also took notes afterward in case something went wrong, and between Jenna and I we could summarize pretty much what everyone said.
This past week we went whale watching twice-both times I went in Eduardo's boat and we cruised around for awhile looking for mammals other than whales as well. We saw a bunch of dolphins-bottlenose and white-sided, and sea lions. Yesterday was funny, we were in the boats for maybe 10 minutes when Will's sunglasses blew off his head. Usually the pangueros can find hats and stuff, but we all assumed that sunglasses would sink and be lost. But Chilaco turned the boat around anyway and we all looked around on the sea floor, which is fairly shallow in that area. Sure enough, Chilaco spotted them and then came the question of how to get them. They fell off in really polluted water, so you wouldn't want to jump in after them for risk of coming out of the water glowing green. Will was hoping for a stick, but those were in short supply on a small speedboat. Chilaco ended up pulling out a fishing line and hook, and amazingly pulled them up on the second try! The rest of the pangas were waiting for us further up the shore, and when we caught up we saw that there was a whale in between the two boats and super close to them. So that was neat, that if Will hadn't lost his sunglasses everyone would have missed that.
On Tuesday or Wednesday we went into town to Brady's friend who's a dressmaker. We got to pick out fabric and tell her what we wanted for custom made clothes. I ended up ordering brown yoga pants with a green rollover top and a strapless sundress in a big blue foral print. I'm super excited I've never had anything custom made, besides Halloween costumes.
The project for AJ is kind of a mini-project to get us used to qualitative research methods, and an opportunity for us to find out more about town. Jenna and I decided to look at professional women (nurses, business owners, teachers, etc) and how they're viewed. We wrote out and translated our questions on Wednesday and today went into town with Brady to conduct interviews. I think we ended up getting 6 total, including 2 business owners, 1 seamstress, 1 pharmacy-worker and 2 men (husbands of two of the women). We have questions planned for professional women, housewives, young girls, and men. Most of the women said that they didn't really face a lot of obstacles becoming a professional, but some of them had experienced some kind of pressure from family members. And all of the women were fairly adamant that they would not feel happy or fulfilled if they were only a housewife. I think it's especially interesting because I think that's how I would feel, and I know people from home on both sides of the issue. I think we're running into problems with the men, in that for the two we interviewed their (professional) wives were in the room and I think at least one of them wasn't completely honest with us. It's also a problem that Jenna and I are both women obviously in college to have a profession, so they may just tell us what they think we want to hear. On the upshot, I understood a lot more in the interviews than I expected to. We recorded everything but also took notes afterward in case something went wrong, and between Jenna and I we could summarize pretty much what everyone said.
This past week we went whale watching twice-both times I went in Eduardo's boat and we cruised around for awhile looking for mammals other than whales as well. We saw a bunch of dolphins-bottlenose and white-sided, and sea lions. Yesterday was funny, we were in the boats for maybe 10 minutes when Will's sunglasses blew off his head. Usually the pangueros can find hats and stuff, but we all assumed that sunglasses would sink and be lost. But Chilaco turned the boat around anyway and we all looked around on the sea floor, which is fairly shallow in that area. Sure enough, Chilaco spotted them and then came the question of how to get them. They fell off in really polluted water, so you wouldn't want to jump in after them for risk of coming out of the water glowing green. Will was hoping for a stick, but those were in short supply on a small speedboat. Chilaco ended up pulling out a fishing line and hook, and amazingly pulled them up on the second try! The rest of the pangas were waiting for us further up the shore, and when we caught up we saw that there was a whale in between the two boats and super close to them. So that was neat, that if Will hadn't lost his sunglasses everyone would have missed that.
On Tuesday or Wednesday we went into town to Brady's friend who's a dressmaker. We got to pick out fabric and tell her what we wanted for custom made clothes. I ended up ordering brown yoga pants with a green rollover top and a strapless sundress in a big blue foral print. I'm super excited I've never had anything custom made, besides Halloween costumes.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
I seem to have a time lag on posting which doesn't totally surprise me. I was never very good at diaries or any of that. Anyway, new pictures are up! Both from whale watching and our death-defying (ok not really) hike through Isla Magdalena. Just so you don't have to go digging through my posts again, here's the album.
Yesterday was fairly slow, even though it wasn't supposed to be that way. We were supposed to split up into two groups and have kayak lessons and some free time (sound like summer camp yet?). But the first group took twice as long kayaking as expected, so my group basically had the entre morning off. They got back at lunch, so we grabbed lunch to go (this awesome kind of Mexican shepherd's pie with potatoes, ground beef, cheese and guac) and drove out to the beach where Brady was waiting with our kayaks.
Kayaking was interesting, I think I like it. You're much closer to the water than I expected, and you're fairly locked in once you have the spray skirt up. I feel like claustrophobic people (Mom) would probably have a problem with it. And the stroke is different from canoeing. If you do it right, your paddling force should be coming from your core rotating, not your arms rowing or something. I was just starting to get it right before it was time to leave. We also had to do a wet exit, which is fairly miserable in a cold lagoon. Since you're so locked in, it's important you know how to get out. So we had to flip ourselves over then pull up the spray skirt and kick out of the kayak. Then there's a process to get the water out of your kayak before you get back on (at which point you pull a sea lion move). I didn't plug my nose when I flipped, so I was dripping seawater for the rest of the day, and of course you're soaked and cold. I managed to do it, but I don't plan on flipping very often after that.
We got back and had Spanish where we went though conditional tense. We had a couple of minutes left, so we finished with Scattergories in Spanish. We had some time off again, where most people worked on their lab reports due for Vero on Monday. Then we went to dinner...and there was none! On Saturdays the cooks make something in the afternoon and staff of the day reheats it before dinner, only Martin forgot it was his turn. So dinner was a little late, but it was great anyway.
After dinner we all went out to Alcatraz, which is the only really nice restaurant in town. There was a soccer game that Jose really wanted to catch, and Alacatraz was the only place likely to have it. It's a nice hotel with a big open patio and good food and a complete gringo magnet. For reference, in Mexico "gringo" just means American, with none of the stupid American connotation we think it has. Not sure if it has that connotation in other countries, but according to Jose it's not some insult or anything. Anyway, I think just about everyone in there was gringos or other sorts of tourists. After the game we went to Los Arcos for drinks (much cheaper!), then the local "club". It's really just a bar with a dance floor with all the tables pushed to the sides. It was packed last night though, apparently for Valentine's Day.
Today was a lazy Sunday. I finished my section of the lab report, then essentially spent the rest of the day reading in the sun. The weather today is ridiculously awesome, bright and sunny and warm with enough of a breeze to not get too hot. This is the first time I've been inside since like 10 this morning. Apparently there's some plans in the making for Valentine's festivities, we'll see how it goes.
Yesterday was fairly slow, even though it wasn't supposed to be that way. We were supposed to split up into two groups and have kayak lessons and some free time (sound like summer camp yet?). But the first group took twice as long kayaking as expected, so my group basically had the entre morning off. They got back at lunch, so we grabbed lunch to go (this awesome kind of Mexican shepherd's pie with potatoes, ground beef, cheese and guac) and drove out to the beach where Brady was waiting with our kayaks.
Kayaking was interesting, I think I like it. You're much closer to the water than I expected, and you're fairly locked in once you have the spray skirt up. I feel like claustrophobic people (Mom) would probably have a problem with it. And the stroke is different from canoeing. If you do it right, your paddling force should be coming from your core rotating, not your arms rowing or something. I was just starting to get it right before it was time to leave. We also had to do a wet exit, which is fairly miserable in a cold lagoon. Since you're so locked in, it's important you know how to get out. So we had to flip ourselves over then pull up the spray skirt and kick out of the kayak. Then there's a process to get the water out of your kayak before you get back on (at which point you pull a sea lion move). I didn't plug my nose when I flipped, so I was dripping seawater for the rest of the day, and of course you're soaked and cold. I managed to do it, but I don't plan on flipping very often after that.
We got back and had Spanish where we went though conditional tense. We had a couple of minutes left, so we finished with Scattergories in Spanish. We had some time off again, where most people worked on their lab reports due for Vero on Monday. Then we went to dinner...and there was none! On Saturdays the cooks make something in the afternoon and staff of the day reheats it before dinner, only Martin forgot it was his turn. So dinner was a little late, but it was great anyway.
After dinner we all went out to Alcatraz, which is the only really nice restaurant in town. There was a soccer game that Jose really wanted to catch, and Alacatraz was the only place likely to have it. It's a nice hotel with a big open patio and good food and a complete gringo magnet. For reference, in Mexico "gringo" just means American, with none of the stupid American connotation we think it has. Not sure if it has that connotation in other countries, but according to Jose it's not some insult or anything. Anyway, I think just about everyone in there was gringos or other sorts of tourists. After the game we went to Los Arcos for drinks (much cheaper!), then the local "club". It's really just a bar with a dance floor with all the tables pushed to the sides. It was packed last night though, apparently for Valentine's Day.
Today was a lazy Sunday. I finished my section of the lab report, then essentially spent the rest of the day reading in the sun. The weather today is ridiculously awesome, bright and sunny and warm with enough of a breeze to not get too hot. This is the first time I've been inside since like 10 this morning. Apparently there's some plans in the making for Valentine's festivities, we'll see how it goes.
Friday, February 12, 2010
So yesterday and today were, in short, awesome and ridiculous.
Yesterday we had our first whale watching trip, where we had to do boat transects. We collected Vero's crab traps and then headed out into the bay to record the number and behavior of whales we saw on our line. Inside the bay I don't think we saw any, but in the mouth I think we counted 17. We also saw a couple breaching, which gray whales don't do very often. We tried to do three transects, one in the bay, one in the mouth and one outside of the bay. We had to end the outside transect because the waves were too high to see any whales over them. Then we turned around and slowed down in the mouth to do photo ID. That was outrageously cool, we had two different whales swim directly under the boat. They surfaced maybe 15-20 feet away and if we had jumped out of the boat we would have landed on them. I was taking pictures, but my camera's batteries died after four pictures, since I'd been taking some all along the boat ride. We stayed out on the water and just watched whales and took pictures for while until it we realized we were already late for a Spanish class.
Then today we went out to Isla Magdalena, one of the islands forming the bay, to look at rocky intertidal zones. But to get there we had to take a 30 min boat ride and an hour hike through the mountains. There's a small fishing co-op village on Isla Magdalena that we went through. The hike started out fairly gently uphill with clearly defined paths but up by the tops of the moutains we were going on narrow, very steep footpaths. At a few points you'd have a drop off and a path only wide enough for one foot at a time. I'm pretty scared of heights and this was just about the worst kind of situation, surrounded by rocky dropoffs hiking on gravelly paths. There were a couple of times I started trembling and I almost cried twice. Going down was awful, I was terrified I was going to fall and start sliding down rock. I took a bunch of pictures from the more stable areas, hopefully you'll be able to get a sense of how steep it was. We finally got to the end and the Pacific Ocean opened up before us, it was a beautiful view.
We got onto the beach and changed shoes to look in the tidepools. My group (Kay and Lindsey) went off to a different set of pools from everyone else, and of course I fell off the first rock I stepped on to. Go figure my only injury was in the tidepools. We had to do quadrats (PVC pipe squares) and record the types of animals and plants in each square. We didn't find much, just a bunch of snails and seagrass. The goal was to see lobsters for Vero, but I don't think anyone saw anything. We stuck around for another 20 minutes and headed back.
The trip back wasn't quite as bad as the trip out, because I knew what I was getting into and it's always easier to control your weight going up. Plus by that time I had told just about everyone that I was super scared of heights and Jenna walked in front of me and kept talking to me. It really helped to be able to follow someone closely and watch their footsteps, plus Jenna's done a good amount of hiking and it made me feel better to see someone who's more confident at it. I felt soo good once I knew we were out of the steep parts.
Once we got back we had dinner and then there was a showing of a documentary this women made in one of the local towns about ecotourism in the area. It's called Ballenas de Oro (Golden Whales), I don't know if it's available anywhere, but it gave a really good view of the issues surrounding fishing and tourism in Bahia Magdalena. The permits and requirements for whale watching are getting too pricy for most locals to afford, so a lot of tourism is foreign run so it doesn't bring as much money to the towns. And creating a marine protected area would mean that a lot of fishermen would either lose their jobs or a part of their income.
Yesterday we had our first whale watching trip, where we had to do boat transects. We collected Vero's crab traps and then headed out into the bay to record the number and behavior of whales we saw on our line. Inside the bay I don't think we saw any, but in the mouth I think we counted 17. We also saw a couple breaching, which gray whales don't do very often. We tried to do three transects, one in the bay, one in the mouth and one outside of the bay. We had to end the outside transect because the waves were too high to see any whales over them. Then we turned around and slowed down in the mouth to do photo ID. That was outrageously cool, we had two different whales swim directly under the boat. They surfaced maybe 15-20 feet away and if we had jumped out of the boat we would have landed on them. I was taking pictures, but my camera's batteries died after four pictures, since I'd been taking some all along the boat ride. We stayed out on the water and just watched whales and took pictures for while until it we realized we were already late for a Spanish class.
Then today we went out to Isla Magdalena, one of the islands forming the bay, to look at rocky intertidal zones. But to get there we had to take a 30 min boat ride and an hour hike through the mountains. There's a small fishing co-op village on Isla Magdalena that we went through. The hike started out fairly gently uphill with clearly defined paths but up by the tops of the moutains we were going on narrow, very steep footpaths. At a few points you'd have a drop off and a path only wide enough for one foot at a time. I'm pretty scared of heights and this was just about the worst kind of situation, surrounded by rocky dropoffs hiking on gravelly paths. There were a couple of times I started trembling and I almost cried twice. Going down was awful, I was terrified I was going to fall and start sliding down rock. I took a bunch of pictures from the more stable areas, hopefully you'll be able to get a sense of how steep it was. We finally got to the end and the Pacific Ocean opened up before us, it was a beautiful view.
We got onto the beach and changed shoes to look in the tidepools. My group (Kay and Lindsey) went off to a different set of pools from everyone else, and of course I fell off the first rock I stepped on to. Go figure my only injury was in the tidepools. We had to do quadrats (PVC pipe squares) and record the types of animals and plants in each square. We didn't find much, just a bunch of snails and seagrass. The goal was to see lobsters for Vero, but I don't think anyone saw anything. We stuck around for another 20 minutes and headed back.
The trip back wasn't quite as bad as the trip out, because I knew what I was getting into and it's always easier to control your weight going up. Plus by that time I had told just about everyone that I was super scared of heights and Jenna walked in front of me and kept talking to me. It really helped to be able to follow someone closely and watch their footsteps, plus Jenna's done a good amount of hiking and it made me feel better to see someone who's more confident at it. I felt soo good once I knew we were out of the steep parts.
Once we got back we had dinner and then there was a showing of a documentary this women made in one of the local towns about ecotourism in the area. It's called Ballenas de Oro (Golden Whales), I don't know if it's available anywhere, but it gave a really good view of the issues surrounding fishing and tourism in Bahia Magdalena. The permits and requirements for whale watching are getting too pricy for most locals to afford, so a lot of tourism is foreign run so it doesn't bring as much money to the towns. And creating a marine protected area would mean that a lot of fishermen would either lose their jobs or a part of their income.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
No internets...so from yesterday, 2/10
Today there was considerable less excitement than yesterday-no earthquakes, no research conundrums, etc. Just a site cleanup (staff and students, everyone assigned a chore) and a bunch of classes-Sustainable Development, Spanish and Coastal Ecology. With AJ we talked about environmental economics, which is how you put an economic value on the environment and ecosystems. We read a paper (Costanza's Value of the World Ecosystems for those scientifically inclined) that estimated the value of our ecosystem services (i.e. nutrient cycling, gas regulation) in dollars, and the value they found was more than the total global GDP. It may sound like a bunch of BS at first glance, but their methods are sound enough to make it the 2nd most cited paper for a period of 10 years. I think it's cool because they didn't even take into account the fact that we couldn't do some of these ecosystem services if we tried. AJ pointed out that if we changed our economy to reflect the environmental costs, our prices would be completely skewed. A product may be four times as much as it is now because the company built their factory on a wetland and we now have to work on processes the waste that that wetland filtered. I think it was the Iroquois who made decisions based on how it would affect people seven generations away. I found that really sobering.
Something that's been hitting me hard here is just how much trash we put out, especially plastics. Puerto San Carlos has trash everywhere, and the vast majority of it is plastic. Plastics take forever to decompose on their own, and often release really noxious chemicals when they do. In the meantime, they threaten the health of our ecosystems. Even if you recycle, that only buys your plastic bottle maybe one more life before the next person throws it out. I think that's something that's going to stick with me-finding things that are reusable instead of disposable and conserving water and energy. In suburbia we take it for granted that water is readily available. What we don't realize is that it takes vast resources to then treat that water after you use it, and to pump it back to someone's house. Another interesting "green" fact-the easiest way to greatly decrease your carbon footprint is to stop eating meat, or at least cows. The resources that go into feeding, raising, killing and transporting cows is one of the greatest contributors to carbon footprint.
Tomorrow we're going out for our first whale watching, weather permitting. We're going to collect data on how many whales we see, where we see them and behavior (spy-hopping, breaching, diving, etc). We had to make up our slates beforehand because there's so much information we have to collect that there's no way we'd be able to do it on the fly without anything in front of us. I'm still a little concerned that we're going to skip something. We're also picking up some crab pots for one of Vero's studies, and I'm really glad we don't have to snorkel for it. I liked snorkeling, but I would not want to go snorkeling then spend the next 3 hours on the boat.
Tonight seven of us went into town for a salsa lesson that Brady set up. We convinced some of the guys to come, even though we didn't end up dancing in pairs. The dance instructor was really amusing, definitely stereotypical male dance teacher. Vero came with us, and she's good! She takes his regular dance class (you know, for mexicanas who already know how to dance) so he kept using her for demonstrating. We did basic steps of salsa, meringue, "country" and samba. The Mexican version of country is much more intense. It's technically still square dancing but probably twice as fast with lots more moving. And the samba was tough-white girl got no hip movement. I was beat by the end. Another good thing about Mexico-the lesson cost 20 pesos, the equivalent of $1.50. I've spent more on one beer than I did for an hour's worth of dance lesson.
Something that's been hitting me hard here is just how much trash we put out, especially plastics. Puerto San Carlos has trash everywhere, and the vast majority of it is plastic. Plastics take forever to decompose on their own, and often release really noxious chemicals when they do. In the meantime, they threaten the health of our ecosystems. Even if you recycle, that only buys your plastic bottle maybe one more life before the next person throws it out. I think that's something that's going to stick with me-finding things that are reusable instead of disposable and conserving water and energy. In suburbia we take it for granted that water is readily available. What we don't realize is that it takes vast resources to then treat that water after you use it, and to pump it back to someone's house. Another interesting "green" fact-the easiest way to greatly decrease your carbon footprint is to stop eating meat, or at least cows. The resources that go into feeding, raising, killing and transporting cows is one of the greatest contributors to carbon footprint.
Tomorrow we're going out for our first whale watching, weather permitting. We're going to collect data on how many whales we see, where we see them and behavior (spy-hopping, breaching, diving, etc). We had to make up our slates beforehand because there's so much information we have to collect that there's no way we'd be able to do it on the fly without anything in front of us. I'm still a little concerned that we're going to skip something. We're also picking up some crab pots for one of Vero's studies, and I'm really glad we don't have to snorkel for it. I liked snorkeling, but I would not want to go snorkeling then spend the next 3 hours on the boat.
Tonight seven of us went into town for a salsa lesson that Brady set up. We convinced some of the guys to come, even though we didn't end up dancing in pairs. The dance instructor was really amusing, definitely stereotypical male dance teacher. Vero came with us, and she's good! She takes his regular dance class (you know, for mexicanas who already know how to dance) so he kept using her for demonstrating. We did basic steps of salsa, meringue, "country" and samba. The Mexican version of country is much more intense. It's technically still square dancing but probably twice as fast with lots more moving. And the samba was tough-white girl got no hip movement. I was beat by the end. Another good thing about Mexico-the lesson cost 20 pesos, the equivalent of $1.50. I've spent more on one beer than I did for an hour's worth of dance lesson.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Terremoto!
Just a quick update before I forget. I felt an earthquake last night! It was minor, similar to what you'd feel if you stood on a plane tarmac or next to a train. I was sitting in the computer lab and felt a rumble and a shake and at first thought it was a big boat or something, then realized there's no way I'd feel that. I went outside and there were a bunch of people congregating around the intern cabin and Gustavo came out and told everyone what it was. Apparently they're not that uncommon, since Baja is essentially on a fault line.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
One of the bad things about San Carlos (besides the lack of internet that means I can't update when I want to!) is it's making me into a weather wuss. I don't think it's been any colder than 60, but every time it dips below maybe 65 we're all complaining about how cold it is. I guess it doesn't help that I only have two sweatshirts and one pair of close-toed shoes that aren't awful to wear in the sand (bad call there). And these buildings aren't exactly built to keep in heat, so there's a constant breeze.
I got up early this morning to do yoga that Brady leads. I don't think I've said much about Brady yet, but she's the Student Affairs Manager and is in charge of us students in general-our happiness, our safety, our schedules, etc. I don't know if its part of her job or not, but she's essentially in charge of community relations. She's been here for three years and knows a lot of the people in town and tries to get them involved in what we're doing. She's essentially like a camp counselor with some admin powers. Anyway, this was one of the only times I've done yoga and I remembered that I do in fact like it a lot. I felt really loose and calmly energized (versus bouncing off the walls energized) afterwards.
We had a bunch of classes, including Coastal Ecology with Eduardo. I really like Eduardo, he's probably in his late 30s and Mexican but he did his PhD in New Zealand so his English is awesome. We did spend a lot of time going over currents and weather patterns, which was less than exciting. We also had Principles of Resource Management with Vero (short for Veronica), who's a petite Mexican woman with a strong accent. In class we've been talking about the agencies that govern fisheries and how fisheries work. Lunch was sandwiches with really awesome bread and assorted toppings. Brady, the student affairs manager, said that the cooks never believe her when she tells them that we're happy with just sandwiches.
We also got an intro to the directed research topics. The three professors (plus Gustavo, center director) have a total of 7 research projects for 2-3 students to work on and specialize a bit. Vero's are mostly concerned with fishery management for different crustaceans (blue crab, lobster and something else), AJ has socioeconomic projects like how changing ___ will affect the people of San Carlos and vice versa, and Eduardo has the sea turtle and whale projects. I'm not really sure which I want to do. I already have a fair amount of traditional ecology field work so I kind of want to do something different with Vero or AJ. But on the other hand, Eduardo's stuff is so cool, and he seems like he'd be great to work with! And I do truly like ecology a lot. But then again, we'll all work on all the projects at some point so it's not like I wouldn't see any whales. I would also feel a little guilty doing the whales or sea turtles because I know there's a bunch of people who really really want to work with them and who came here just to do that. I could get into the less charismatic species and projects, like mangroves or the rock lobster. Gustavo said they try to get everyone in at least their 2nd choice, so I may just write down my top three and say "I don't have an order" and leave it to chance a bit.
For Spanish class they broke us into two levels, and whichever level isn't in class gets to have free time. Today all the Spanish I girls went to Brady's friend who's a seamstress to get clothing tailor-made. The rest of us will be going in a few weeks, I'm soo excited for that! The only clothing I've ever had made just for me were Halloween costumes when I was little. I think I want to get yoga pants and a dress, but I can't decide what I want the dress to be like yet.
In Spanish 2 we had a debate on the influence of mass communication, with my group saying it was bad. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to argue with "without books and journals we wouldn't have modern medicine." It started to get a little heated but when we left everyone was laughing and saying things like "I don't actually believe it's ok to destroy cultures." It's hard trying to come up with arguments for something that you may not believe, and furthermore arguments that you can actually figure out how to say. For example, Martin didn't think there's even a word for "Westernization" in Spanish.
I got up early this morning to do yoga that Brady leads. I don't think I've said much about Brady yet, but she's the Student Affairs Manager and is in charge of us students in general-our happiness, our safety, our schedules, etc. I don't know if its part of her job or not, but she's essentially in charge of community relations. She's been here for three years and knows a lot of the people in town and tries to get them involved in what we're doing. She's essentially like a camp counselor with some admin powers. Anyway, this was one of the only times I've done yoga and I remembered that I do in fact like it a lot. I felt really loose and calmly energized (versus bouncing off the walls energized) afterwards.
We had a bunch of classes, including Coastal Ecology with Eduardo. I really like Eduardo, he's probably in his late 30s and Mexican but he did his PhD in New Zealand so his English is awesome. We did spend a lot of time going over currents and weather patterns, which was less than exciting. We also had Principles of Resource Management with Vero (short for Veronica), who's a petite Mexican woman with a strong accent. In class we've been talking about the agencies that govern fisheries and how fisheries work. Lunch was sandwiches with really awesome bread and assorted toppings. Brady, the student affairs manager, said that the cooks never believe her when she tells them that we're happy with just sandwiches.
We also got an intro to the directed research topics. The three professors (plus Gustavo, center director) have a total of 7 research projects for 2-3 students to work on and specialize a bit. Vero's are mostly concerned with fishery management for different crustaceans (blue crab, lobster and something else), AJ has socioeconomic projects like how changing ___ will affect the people of San Carlos and vice versa, and Eduardo has the sea turtle and whale projects. I'm not really sure which I want to do. I already have a fair amount of traditional ecology field work so I kind of want to do something different with Vero or AJ. But on the other hand, Eduardo's stuff is so cool, and he seems like he'd be great to work with! And I do truly like ecology a lot. But then again, we'll all work on all the projects at some point so it's not like I wouldn't see any whales. I would also feel a little guilty doing the whales or sea turtles because I know there's a bunch of people who really really want to work with them and who came here just to do that. I could get into the less charismatic species and projects, like mangroves or the rock lobster. Gustavo said they try to get everyone in at least their 2nd choice, so I may just write down my top three and say "I don't have an order" and leave it to chance a bit.
For Spanish class they broke us into two levels, and whichever level isn't in class gets to have free time. Today all the Spanish I girls went to Brady's friend who's a seamstress to get clothing tailor-made. The rest of us will be going in a few weeks, I'm soo excited for that! The only clothing I've ever had made just for me were Halloween costumes when I was little. I think I want to get yoga pants and a dress, but I can't decide what I want the dress to be like yet.
In Spanish 2 we had a debate on the influence of mass communication, with my group saying it was bad. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to argue with "without books and journals we wouldn't have modern medicine." It started to get a little heated but when we left everyone was laughing and saying things like "I don't actually believe it's ok to destroy cultures." It's hard trying to come up with arguments for something that you may not believe, and furthermore arguments that you can actually figure out how to say. For example, Martin didn't think there's even a word for "Westernization" in Spanish.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Today was our first day off, so everyone slept in another couple of hours. Got up around 10 and got breakfast, which is fend for yourself on Sundays. A bunch of people went to a beach (since ours is polluted) but I stayed back to finish up some reading and a paper on environmental ethics. Jenna (one of my roommates), Dave, Lindsey and I went into town for lunch. I ended up getting bistec ranchero, which is kind of shredded beef with peppers and onions mixed in. Pretty much everything is served with beans and tortillas and usually rice. I still haven´t figured out the best way to eat things, I still do a kind of wrap. Lindsey got this thing that we couldn´t figure out what it was until we got back to the center and asked Jose, the kid from Mexico city. Apparently she ate pig fat lol. After lunch we walked around San Carlos a bit and stopped in the grocery store for assorted snack foods. I hadn´t really been around San Carlos during the day except for our tour. It´s nice to be able to see the uneven sidewalks and stray dogs in the light lol. When we got back the people from the beach were back and I finished up (for real this time) my readings. I had gotten confused and didn´t realize we had readings for the field exercise yesterday, so I had a backlog to finish. Since it was Sunday a group of students had to cook dinner, which was bbq chicken, pasta and stir fry veggies. We tried to find somewhere that streamed the Super Bowl, but failed.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Today was definitely the coolest day so far. Since it's Saturday we got to sleep in for another hour before breakfast. There were a lot of pastries and muffins, as well as the usual fruit and chocolate (hot chocolate Mexican style, with cinnamon and some other spices). After that we had RAP and assorted meetings, which were essentially the students getting together and going over any announcements or requests (ie can we organize dirty dishes better and can we please do something about that poor dog that's hanging around). The staff was having a meeting at the same time, and at the end Brady (Student Affairs Manager) and Gustavo (Center Director) listened to our points and brought up any they had for us.
Then we went out on our first field exercise. We loaded up the pangas with all our snorkeling gear and packed lunches and field equipment and had maybe a 15-20 min boat ride out to the bay where we were doing a scallop abundance sampling. We had squares made out of PVC that we had to throw behind us, then snorkel to see if there were any scallops within the quadrant. If there were, we had to collect any. Unfortunately no one saw scallops, although one of my group members Jose almost put his hand on a stingray. Then we got back in the boats and had another boat ride to collect octopi! Vero (Principles of Resource Management) has a study of octopus using artificial shelter (beer cans). So we had to go out and collect the cans and their stakes from three different sea floor types-rhodoliths, sand, and rocky. To do this you had to dive down (nothing over like 4 ft), plug the end of the can, grab the stake and bring the whole thing to the surface and put the can in a Ziploc full of water. The first and last locations we had to snorkel and had difficulty finding all of the cans. In one place I saw a big blue crab, a bunch of scallops and a really weird looking fish. But for the sand, the water was only about 2 feet deep so we just waded and found almost all of them. All of this took 4-5 hours, and we ate lunch on the boat. My snorkeling gear all worked fine-it was my first time, and with all new gear. It was a little harder to get to the bottom with my wetsuit on, but it was too cold to go without. I also stupidly forgot a towel, so I borrowed someone else's once we got in the boat.
Once we got back we had to process everything in the lab, which involved cutting open the cans and recording all the animals that were in the bag. Most of them had a ton of snails and I got to show off my amphipod prowess. My group had a couple of fish and crabs, but no octopi. I think there were maybe a total of 10 octopi caught, some with eggs in the can. We had to kill one of them because it was a new species and we had to keep a sample for identification in the future. Vero got really upset and was having problems because the octopus kept trying to crawl out of the jar of alcohol. I ended up grabbing it and doing it myself. A lot of people were kind of shaken up by it and couldn't watch, but I guess from putting so many frogs down I'm used to having to do the sad part. I also believe that "if you kill something, you have to watch it die," kind of as a token of respect to it, or so you don't forget what you're asking of it. We didn't have to put any others down, and they were very cool. One of the other kids got pictures and will be putting them up on the server. It was really weird to hold one, their suckers were definitely strong, but they didn't hurt. They could move in so many different ways and it was like having 8 legs gave them a different dimension of movement, or at least had many more ways of moving.
Tonight we're going into town to the restaurant Poncho (one of the pangueros)'s sister owns. Some of us are having dinner there, but since they're only doing shellfish tonight some people ate at the center and are only doing drinks once we're there. It's a good thing we're getting a ride though because I'm exhausted from snorkeling all day.
Then we went out on our first field exercise. We loaded up the pangas with all our snorkeling gear and packed lunches and field equipment and had maybe a 15-20 min boat ride out to the bay where we were doing a scallop abundance sampling. We had squares made out of PVC that we had to throw behind us, then snorkel to see if there were any scallops within the quadrant. If there were, we had to collect any. Unfortunately no one saw scallops, although one of my group members Jose almost put his hand on a stingray. Then we got back in the boats and had another boat ride to collect octopi! Vero (Principles of Resource Management) has a study of octopus using artificial shelter (beer cans). So we had to go out and collect the cans and their stakes from three different sea floor types-rhodoliths, sand, and rocky. To do this you had to dive down (nothing over like 4 ft), plug the end of the can, grab the stake and bring the whole thing to the surface and put the can in a Ziploc full of water. The first and last locations we had to snorkel and had difficulty finding all of the cans. In one place I saw a big blue crab, a bunch of scallops and a really weird looking fish. But for the sand, the water was only about 2 feet deep so we just waded and found almost all of them. All of this took 4-5 hours, and we ate lunch on the boat. My snorkeling gear all worked fine-it was my first time, and with all new gear. It was a little harder to get to the bottom with my wetsuit on, but it was too cold to go without. I also stupidly forgot a towel, so I borrowed someone else's once we got in the boat.
Once we got back we had to process everything in the lab, which involved cutting open the cans and recording all the animals that were in the bag. Most of them had a ton of snails and I got to show off my amphipod prowess. My group had a couple of fish and crabs, but no octopi. I think there were maybe a total of 10 octopi caught, some with eggs in the can. We had to kill one of them because it was a new species and we had to keep a sample for identification in the future. Vero got really upset and was having problems because the octopus kept trying to crawl out of the jar of alcohol. I ended up grabbing it and doing it myself. A lot of people were kind of shaken up by it and couldn't watch, but I guess from putting so many frogs down I'm used to having to do the sad part. I also believe that "if you kill something, you have to watch it die," kind of as a token of respect to it, or so you don't forget what you're asking of it. We didn't have to put any others down, and they were very cool. One of the other kids got pictures and will be putting them up on the server. It was really weird to hold one, their suckers were definitely strong, but they didn't hurt. They could move in so many different ways and it was like having 8 legs gave them a different dimension of movement, or at least had many more ways of moving.
Tonight we're going into town to the restaurant Poncho (one of the pangueros)'s sister owns. Some of us are having dinner there, but since they're only doing shellfish tonight some people ate at the center and are only doing drinks once we're there. It's a good thing we're getting a ride though because I'm exhausted from snorkeling all day.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Just a quick post during break. Yesterday we had our first Sustainable Development class with AJ, then drove into Ciudad Constitucion to get pictures taken for our student visas. We had some really awesome ice cream there too, I had coconut that tasted just like fresh coconut, and chocolate which was the awesome kind of Mexican chocolate that has some kind of cinammon or something mixed in. Came back, had dinner and then a weekly social, which was game night. We ended up playing Pictionary for probably two hours.
I woke up early today so I finally managed to upload all my pictures. I had to do one at a time and it took about 40 minutes to upload 20 pictures, and I only managed to do that because everyone was either asleep or running lol.
Today I had to lead RAP (Reflections Announcements Physicality). I read two Rachel Carson quotes and then did this game called Birdies and Perches, which is kind of like human musical chairs-one person's the birdie and the other the perch and when the music stops the birdie has to be off the ground. Last pair standing wins.
We had our first classes in Resource Management (with Vero) and Coastal Ecology (with Eduardo). Funnily enough, Eduardo was going over his research background and two of his main projects were on amphipods and frogs...that sounded familiar.
Anyway, album is here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037169&id=1480320118&l=8310a6c09b it should work for everyone, whether or not they have facebook.
I woke up early today so I finally managed to upload all my pictures. I had to do one at a time and it took about 40 minutes to upload 20 pictures, and I only managed to do that because everyone was either asleep or running lol.
Today I had to lead RAP (Reflections Announcements Physicality). I read two Rachel Carson quotes and then did this game called Birdies and Perches, which is kind of like human musical chairs-one person's the birdie and the other the perch and when the music stops the birdie has to be off the ground. Last pair standing wins.
We had our first classes in Resource Management (with Vero) and Coastal Ecology (with Eduardo). Funnily enough, Eduardo was going over his research background and two of his main projects were on amphipods and frogs...that sounded familiar.
Anyway, album is here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037169&id=1480320118&l=8310a6c09b it should work for everyone, whether or not they have facebook.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Today after breakfast we started out with a goals/expectations meeting where we did the typical "3 goals for the semester," then Brady had a question and answer session about what to expect. Realistic expectations were things like "seeing whales", unrealistic would be "touching whales" since they're hard to get close to. It really just became a general q/a session. Then we had a short break to get ready for our swimming test. Since the water around the point is really polluted we're not allowed to swim there, so we had to go for maybe a 15-20 minute boat ride to a different beach surrounded by mangroves. The boats are simple speedboats, the ride was bumpy and something short of pleasant. They anchored the boats maybe 100m away from each other and you had to swim back and forth, three times if you wore a wetsuit, twice if not. Swimming in the ocean in a wetsuit was harder than I expected, I felt fairly ridiculous that it took me so long. Once you had done your laps you had to tread water for 1:30 minutes. Then we got back in the boats and headed back.
Once we got back we had some time for a break, during which a bunch of people took quick showers and rinsed out their wetsuits. Then we had lunch, which was some kind of a mixed veggie/shellfish (chocolate clams-not actually chocolate!) and rice, plus crabs. After that we had a site cleanup-everyone has a different chore every week that they have to do. This week mine's kitchen trash/recycling, where I have to make sure both are emptied and the recycling is sorted correctly. That was pretty quick, so I went to help Will sweep the patio and museum. It rained so much yesterday that the museum was pretty much flooded so he spent most of the time squeeging water out while Laura, Elia, Vero and I swept sand off the patio.
After site cleanup we went on a walking tour of town with Brady. We saw a bunch of the shops and Brady pointed out the ones with really friendly shop owners, as well as the ones who speak English. We stopped to go in a few stores like the grocery store, a gift shop and a convenience store. I took a bunch of pictures...and my camera deleted them, as well as all the pictures I took of the site. So once we got back I wandered around some more, taking the same pictures I'd taken yesterday and this morning. After that I played (or something like it) soccer with Elia, Jose and Antonio (an intern) on the sand lot they made earlier today.
When we got back we realized that our cabin's power was out. Gustavo (the center director) and Carlos (the repairman) fixed it by flipping our breaker. It went out again and we think it was the light that's outside our door, so we're leaving that off for awhile. We got our first reading assignments from AJ, a small chapter in a book and some online reading, so everyone's doing that right now.
I'm trying to upload photos right now, but it's taking forever. Our internet is fairly mercurial and is totally dependent on how many people are trying to use the server at once.
Once we got back we had some time for a break, during which a bunch of people took quick showers and rinsed out their wetsuits. Then we had lunch, which was some kind of a mixed veggie/shellfish (chocolate clams-not actually chocolate!) and rice, plus crabs. After that we had a site cleanup-everyone has a different chore every week that they have to do. This week mine's kitchen trash/recycling, where I have to make sure both are emptied and the recycling is sorted correctly. That was pretty quick, so I went to help Will sweep the patio and museum. It rained so much yesterday that the museum was pretty much flooded so he spent most of the time squeeging water out while Laura, Elia, Vero and I swept sand off the patio.
After site cleanup we went on a walking tour of town with Brady. We saw a bunch of the shops and Brady pointed out the ones with really friendly shop owners, as well as the ones who speak English. We stopped to go in a few stores like the grocery store, a gift shop and a convenience store. I took a bunch of pictures...and my camera deleted them, as well as all the pictures I took of the site. So once we got back I wandered around some more, taking the same pictures I'd taken yesterday and this morning. After that I played (or something like it) soccer with Elia, Jose and Antonio (an intern) on the sand lot they made earlier today.
When we got back we realized that our cabin's power was out. Gustavo (the center director) and Carlos (the repairman) fixed it by flipping our breaker. It went out again and we think it was the light that's outside our door, so we're leaving that off for awhile. We got our first reading assignments from AJ, a small chapter in a book and some online reading, so everyone's doing that right now.
I'm trying to upload photos right now, but it's taking forever. Our internet is fairly mercurial and is totally dependent on how many people are trying to use the server at once.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Arrival
So first of all, I made it fine! We had to get up at 2:30 am to be at Philly airport at 4 for my flight at 6. Dad went to park the car and I almost missed saying goodbye to him-I was just getting waved to security when he made it. I managed to sleep (or at least doze) through my first flight to Dallas. I missed the first mini shuttle to my terminal because I thought I was getting on the wrong train. The people on it must have been pretty amused when I got on, looked around, got off, and then stood right in front of them while they left. My Dallas to Guadalajara was fairly simple, it was on a smaller jet and I ended up getting the very first seat-extra leg room! Going through Guadalajara airport was an experience though. They funneled us straight through Immigration, where I got my visa but since I had a connecting flight my luggage was checked to La Paz, so I got to go through a faster line where they just checked my carry on luggage. All this took me about 20 minutes to figure out, all when I only had 1 hr 40 min to get set for my connection. I managed to communicate in Spanish, since most of the airport workers I talked to didn't know a lot of English. I ended up walking outside to get to my next terminal, the weather was fantastic. I met up with three other SFS girls at the Guadalajara gate. Got onto another jet (which we had to walk across tarmac to get to) that took us to Culiacan and then La Paz. Somehow my luggage (and Lindsey's, the girl I was carrying things for) didn't get lost. And somehow I think I managed to skip customs in the mixup between Guadalajara and La Paz-each assumed I'd be checked at the other, but I just walked right past the customs officers at La Paz. Then we had a four hour drive to the field station, a good portion of which I slept through.
The center is essentially on the beach, and all the buildings are white with thatched roofs (pictures to come once it stops raining). Our cabin fits four people and has a lofted bed with room underneath it with a desk and shelves. We have 17 students and I think the center can hold 30, so I don't think any of the cabins are full. I managed to get unpacked last night in about an hour which was a little anticlimactic considering how long it took to pack everything.
Today we got up and had breakfast-there were tortillas, beans and scrambled eggs, which most of us combined, as well as cereal and fruit. Then we had a guest lecture by J Nichols, who basically started the whole sea turtle conservation movement. He was advised not to work with sea turtles because they were too far gone, and he wouldn't get enough data for a PhD thesis. He was the first person to track sea turtle movement and found that they travel 7,000 miles across the Pacific in one year. He also got us thinking on how much trash and plastics we put into the ocean. After his talk we had a tour of the center, a rules and policies meeting and a risk management meeting. At this point we've probably played at least 5 name games, and I think I've got everyone down. We were supposed to do a tour of San Carlos today but since it's raining a lot of places will be closed and a walking tour would be miserable anyway.
The center is essentially on the beach, and all the buildings are white with thatched roofs (pictures to come once it stops raining). Our cabin fits four people and has a lofted bed with room underneath it with a desk and shelves. We have 17 students and I think the center can hold 30, so I don't think any of the cabins are full. I managed to get unpacked last night in about an hour which was a little anticlimactic considering how long it took to pack everything.
Today we got up and had breakfast-there were tortillas, beans and scrambled eggs, which most of us combined, as well as cereal and fruit. Then we had a guest lecture by J Nichols, who basically started the whole sea turtle conservation movement. He was advised not to work with sea turtles because they were too far gone, and he wouldn't get enough data for a PhD thesis. He was the first person to track sea turtle movement and found that they travel 7,000 miles across the Pacific in one year. He also got us thinking on how much trash and plastics we put into the ocean. After his talk we had a tour of the center, a rules and policies meeting and a risk management meeting. At this point we've probably played at least 5 name games, and I think I've got everyone down. We were supposed to do a tour of San Carlos today but since it's raining a lot of places will be closed and a walking tour would be miserable anyway.
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