So a lot of exciting stuff has happened in the past couple of days!
To begin with, Shane is back, and the Braveheart is in dock, so now the fun begins! The Braveheart is a ship that sails around, bringing passengers to different islands in the Pacific, including the Pitcairn Islands. The Pitcairn Islands are worth a wikipedia search, if you have the time. Basically, there are only about 50 people who live there, and they are descendents of crew members of the Bounty. They don't do much there except “feud” in the words of one of the Braveheart crew, and about ten years ago, there was a big trial against a bunch of the men on the island where they were accused of rape of kids. Like I said, pretty interesting stuff. There is also a book about the islands and the trial, though I have been told that Pitcairn natives did not think it was completely factual. Anyways, so the Braveheart, in the time of the trial, used to bring prison guards, lawyers, judges and such to the island. They are still one of the only non-supply boats that travels there. About seven years ago, they used to transport National Geographic reporters and scientists around the Pacific too. The crew are mainly Kiwis, and they are old friends of a bunch of people here in the Station, so lots of people are excited that they are in port.
Jada and I have been collecting species from our work to bring back to Florida. We decided that when we collected 100 species than we would get to go to the Sheridan for happy hour. The Sheridan is pretty awesome; it's the sort of place that honeymooners go in Moorea, with waterfront bungalows, and overpriced items in the gift shop and such. Drinks there are really expensive, but at happy hour they are half off. We went to meet some of the French researchers from the French research station that we will be staying at later. I felt like the alcoholic American when I guzzled down my small drink in less than five minutes. Since we are over 100 species at this point, it may not be that much time before we get to go again!
Later than night, we went to the station barbecue. Right now, there are at least fifty people staying at the station, so it was quite a gathering! There were undergraduate students from Hawaii, researchers from California, MIT, us, so forth. Jada and I decided that our contribution would be macaroni and cheese. Cooking, like many other activities on the island is, in Jada's words, “MacGyver-esque.” I had to modify my recipes from cheddar to emmental, and half and half to cream and milk, mixed together. This was after I threw out a bunch of recipe ideas because we didn't have pesto, basil, rosemary, etc. I cooked two huge serving style trays full of macaroni; I've never cooked that much food for that many people. As I tend to do when I'm cooking for others, I got really stressed out about the whole thing, going crazy wanting other people to eat this humongous serving I had made. I think that in general, it was a success, though we have a plentiful portion of it left for lunch for the next few days.
In other words, our puppy has been adopted! Someone on the island decided to give her a good home. Though we are happy that she has a home, we still miss her, even if in recent days, she had grown accustomed to chewing on all of my clothes, my shoes, the sheets, and the furniture.
There is also a big fuel strike on Tahiti at this time. From what I understand, though I am probably mistaken, people are blocking the fuel from leaving Tahiti, and as such, Tahiti and all the other islands around it, like Moorea, are now living on a finite supply of gas. We are doing ok now, but soon we may run out of gas for the boats, the cars, the land rovers, and sooner or later, the electricity may go out. The ferries are already running less than they usually do. Soon planes may not be landing or leaving Tahiti's international airport. No one seems to be particularly worried right now, but we may have reason to worry soon. Anyone know any good negotiators?
Love to all,
Emily
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Field work or Die Hard 2
Hey everyone!
So things have been busy lately! Mostly in a bad way. Let me explain.
The tap water here is generally not very drinkable unless you are in the dry season in which time most of the locals don't even drink it. So we mainly use that water for showers, washing off dive gear, etc. In the bungalows and the kitchens there are filtered water taps. And that's what I've been drinking since I got here.
So two nights ago I went to a nice dinner next door and the next morning I woke up throwing up. Since I hadn't eaten a lot or dunk a lot, this seemed distressing. The whole day I felt weak, and felt like sleeping the whole day, though I did a bunch of computer work. Later that day I ran into one of the professors here who was also feeling queasy. Then we ran into some of our local friends who are all getting sick too. They said that the filtered water here apparently only takes out the dirt and not the microbial organisms in it. Seeing as how even our local friends are sick, I think something more sinister is going on. Probably a flu passing through or something. I am feeling better today, but more people are getting sick. So it may just be bottled drinks from now on for me!
Today we got into the water and collected more tiles and put back others. Someone asked, and I am getting better in the water at doing what I need to do. It's still difficult though. Imagine if you were at work, and you were trying to get your work done but you were floating around, running into things, worried about running out of air to breathe. It is definitely a different environment working under the sea!
Love to all,
Emily
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Field Work or The Empire Strikes Back
So posts are slower than usual because this week has been a busy week! On Monday the day went from 8 AM-9 PM. So not that much time to struggle with blogspot which is giving me problems. Anyways, a little update on all that is happening.
As beautiful as Moorea is, there is some nasty stuff that goes around. MDR staph is prevalent here, one person in our lab alone has gotten it multiple times since being here, so I am getting paranoid about every tiny cut and bugbite I have. When you think about all the microscopic cuts you have that you think nothing about, but which could cause you to lose your hand, it is pretty scary. So that and dengue fever which also comes here frequently are enough to keep you up at night.
Although a ton of people come to this research station for Marine research (Ecology, Physiology, Oceanography, etc.) there are also a lot of other scientists here. Yesterday, a group of guys from MIT arrived. They build robots that are meant to do things under the water like recording film, checking remote recording devices, etc. There has also been an anthropologist here, a terrestrial bird biologist, a few entomologists, etc. So I guess what I'm saying is that if you can find a niche and money, anyone can come here and do something!
Some people have asked about the island. The island is only about 26 miles around. There are mountains inland, and valleys among the mountains. There are only a few “cities” here. One is Maharepa, where we go for food, mainly. There are some nice restaurants there, a few banks, some surf shops, shopping, police department, doctor, etc. There is a bigger Walmart sort of super market on the other side of the island called Toa. The station has cars that are available to use and which we use for shopping and stuff, but you have to be 23 to drive, so no driving for me! Since they are land rovers with manual, which I can't drive anyways, it's not a big deal. Maybe next time I can come back knowing how to drive a manual stick shift? Anyone want to teach me?
More later, back to the field now!
Best,
Emily
As beautiful as Moorea is, there is some nasty stuff that goes around. MDR staph is prevalent here, one person in our lab alone has gotten it multiple times since being here, so I am getting paranoid about every tiny cut and bugbite I have. When you think about all the microscopic cuts you have that you think nothing about, but which could cause you to lose your hand, it is pretty scary. So that and dengue fever which also comes here frequently are enough to keep you up at night.
Although a ton of people come to this research station for Marine research (Ecology, Physiology, Oceanography, etc.) there are also a lot of other scientists here. Yesterday, a group of guys from MIT arrived. They build robots that are meant to do things under the water like recording film, checking remote recording devices, etc. There has also been an anthropologist here, a terrestrial bird biologist, a few entomologists, etc. So I guess what I'm saying is that if you can find a niche and money, anyone can come here and do something!
Some people have asked about the island. The island is only about 26 miles around. There are mountains inland, and valleys among the mountains. There are only a few “cities” here. One is Maharepa, where we go for food, mainly. There are some nice restaurants there, a few banks, some surf shops, shopping, police department, doctor, etc. There is a bigger Walmart sort of super market on the other side of the island called Toa. The station has cars that are available to use and which we use for shopping and stuff, but you have to be 23 to drive, so no driving for me! Since they are land rovers with manual, which I can't drive anyways, it's not a big deal. Maybe next time I can come back knowing how to drive a manual stick shift? Anyone want to teach me?
More later, back to the field now!
Best,
Emily
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Field Work or I didn't realize this involved land dwelling fauna
As some of you know, I used to be pre-veterinary medicine at one point in what is now seeming like my endless time at UF. I interned for two summers, first with a horse vet, then with a domestic pets vet, before I came to the realization during my sophomore year at UF that veterinary medicine might not be for me. It came around the time that I realized that performing spays and neuters were not really satisfying me. It had to do with the repetition, day in and day out of spays and neuters. I didn't like the idea of being in one place either.
One day, in the midst of this uncertainty, I decided that I should get research experience if I wanted to (possibly) get into vet school. I saw Jada's description of her research on the Zoology website; seeking an undergraduate assistant. The rest, as they say, is history.
One would think that the French Polynesia, diving, when I just learned to dive last year, would be the farthest possible place away from this former life. That seems not to be the case.
While having dinner with our next door neighbors a few nights ago, one of them mentioned that the locals tend to drop off dogs at the research station, expecting them to get fed and taken care of by well meaning, gullible Americans. I am ashamed to admit that I have become one of these Americans.
While working in the lab one day, I walked across the street and saw a small thing moving under the bushes. Sure enough, it is one of these aforementioned dogs, dirty, smelly, covered in fleas, shivering and frightened. What was I supposed to do except give it a bath, and cradle it until she fell asleep?
That night, Jada and I discovered just how much noise can come out of a dog weighing less than five pounds. She wasn't happy until Jada slept with one hand next to her, laying on the side of her bed.
This dog, I should add, is in addition to the six puppies we are already taking care of. These puppies are slightly younger than ours, and they, thank god, do not cry as much as ours does. Luckily, ours is getting better. Last night, she slept outside and barely cried. I am also getting her to socialize with the other puppies and learn what it is like to be a dog.
Unfortunately, the reason we have so many dogs is because there is a big stray dog population on the island. Fixing a dog runs up to $500, and most people cannot afford it or simply don't feel like it is money well spent. There are a few station dogs, but they are required to be fixed and without fleas.
Our neighbor will come back from her collecting trip tomorrow and we will cede care of the puppies to her. We have a few people looking on the island for homes for all of them as well. So hopefully that will pan out because we are running out of time and patience to take care of all of them with.
A picture of our puppy is included below. Our friend David here mentioned to us that he didn't like dogs or cats, and we asked why that was. He said that “[he] didn't believe that humans should socialize with other species.” I am starting to see his point.
Best,
Emily
One day, in the midst of this uncertainty, I decided that I should get research experience if I wanted to (possibly) get into vet school. I saw Jada's description of her research on the Zoology website; seeking an undergraduate assistant. The rest, as they say, is history.
One would think that the French Polynesia, diving, when I just learned to dive last year, would be the farthest possible place away from this former life. That seems not to be the case.
While having dinner with our next door neighbors a few nights ago, one of them mentioned that the locals tend to drop off dogs at the research station, expecting them to get fed and taken care of by well meaning, gullible Americans. I am ashamed to admit that I have become one of these Americans.
While working in the lab one day, I walked across the street and saw a small thing moving under the bushes. Sure enough, it is one of these aforementioned dogs, dirty, smelly, covered in fleas, shivering and frightened. What was I supposed to do except give it a bath, and cradle it until she fell asleep?
That night, Jada and I discovered just how much noise can come out of a dog weighing less than five pounds. She wasn't happy until Jada slept with one hand next to her, laying on the side of her bed.
This dog, I should add, is in addition to the six puppies we are already taking care of. These puppies are slightly younger than ours, and they, thank god, do not cry as much as ours does. Luckily, ours is getting better. Last night, she slept outside and barely cried. I am also getting her to socialize with the other puppies and learn what it is like to be a dog.
Unfortunately, the reason we have so many dogs is because there is a big stray dog population on the island. Fixing a dog runs up to $500, and most people cannot afford it or simply don't feel like it is money well spent. There are a few station dogs, but they are required to be fixed and without fleas.
Our neighbor will come back from her collecting trip tomorrow and we will cede care of the puppies to her. We have a few people looking on the island for homes for all of them as well. So hopefully that will pan out because we are running out of time and patience to take care of all of them with.
A picture of our puppy is included below. Our friend David here mentioned to us that he didn't like dogs or cats, and we asked why that was. He said that “[he] didn't believe that humans should socialize with other species.” I am starting to see his point.
Best,
Emily
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Field Work: This time, it's personal
So second day of field work.
Yesterday, as you know, we loosened nuts on our tiles. Today we actually went out and collected them. And by we, I actually mean Jada. Let me explain.
Because the nuts were already loosened from yesterday, it doesn't take that much time to take off the tiles. Seeing as the reefs are only six feet or so under the surface, we decided to complete today on snorkel. The reasons why we would use snorkel are thus: it's a lot less stuff to get ready and pack, we can get on the boat faster, and when we are in the water we are not as encumbered with gear. We would SCUBA dive when we need to be under for longer, and we are doing something more labor intensive.
So I thought I like snorkeling more, but I am firmly in the SCUBA family now, at least for field work. The waves were more intense then yesterday, and even just floating on the surface, the water is lapping into your snorkel, forcing you to choke on salt water constantly. I don't even want to know how much water I swallowed today, probably way too much. Jada went down and unscrewed the nuts, and put the tiles in buckets. Since she has had a ton of practice, she can hold her breath for amounts of time that can only be described as inhuman. I, on the other hand, swim down (with my eight pound weight belt, still buoyant because of the ridiculous amounts of fat), am there for ten seconds or so, trying to put the nuts back on, and my lungs feel like they are about to explode. So Jada did most of it and I put on one or two nuts. I was quite the helper. Snorkeling is going to take a lot of work.
But things went so much better when the tiles were back in and we looked at them under the microscope. I think a lot of you have either heard me talk about the tiles, or actually seen them yourselves. What a difference to see them in person! For once on this trip, I actually felt really qualified to do something. I knew the algae there, I knew what I was looking for, it just felt great.
Another project I am working on during this trip is on this disease that is killing algae on our tiles. The disease is not well known, and only was recently discovered. We don't even know whether it is a virus, fungus, bacteria, etc. We also don't know how is spreads, the extent to which it kills, what kind of algae it kills, or anything. Jada and I have been corresponding with scientists and seeing what needs to be studied about it and what we already know. So one of my side projects will be tracking the spread of the disease over the time period in which we are here.
Scientists have always seemed to me to be a bit strange at the all consuming obsession they develop over their research. What a change to see this disease! Suddenly, I didn't care about dinner, time flew, and I started to want to skip the party at the station that night in order to keep doing work with the disease. We've only seen it on one tile so far, and I'm already obsessed. Real healthy, right?
Some people have asked about the food I've been eating, so I thought I'd address that here. In every country I travel to I see a big focus on one specific food. Here it is pork. Of course, pork is the one food I don't eat. So we are making efforts to avoid that. Yesterday we were invited to dinner with friends of Jada's and we had a lentil stew, and tonight Jada made shrimp stir fry. There is also this really great snack restaurant down the road and I've had cheeseburgers there. Yum. We also went out to lunch one day and had raw tuna, which had been marinated in lemon juice, then in coconut juice, in a stir fry salad. It is a local classic. Fish is really fresh here. Later, Jada and I are planning to make sushi with fish we get. Other than that, the supermarket is pretty regular. Although, the best produce is at the gas station. I have no idea either.
There has been a undergraduate program here for the past 2 months, and they are leaving tomorrow, so to celebrate they are throwing “Gump Prom” tonight. So that is where we are off to.
Love to all,
Emily
Yesterday, as you know, we loosened nuts on our tiles. Today we actually went out and collected them. And by we, I actually mean Jada. Let me explain.
Because the nuts were already loosened from yesterday, it doesn't take that much time to take off the tiles. Seeing as the reefs are only six feet or so under the surface, we decided to complete today on snorkel. The reasons why we would use snorkel are thus: it's a lot less stuff to get ready and pack, we can get on the boat faster, and when we are in the water we are not as encumbered with gear. We would SCUBA dive when we need to be under for longer, and we are doing something more labor intensive.
So I thought I like snorkeling more, but I am firmly in the SCUBA family now, at least for field work. The waves were more intense then yesterday, and even just floating on the surface, the water is lapping into your snorkel, forcing you to choke on salt water constantly. I don't even want to know how much water I swallowed today, probably way too much. Jada went down and unscrewed the nuts, and put the tiles in buckets. Since she has had a ton of practice, she can hold her breath for amounts of time that can only be described as inhuman. I, on the other hand, swim down (with my eight pound weight belt, still buoyant because of the ridiculous amounts of fat), am there for ten seconds or so, trying to put the nuts back on, and my lungs feel like they are about to explode. So Jada did most of it and I put on one or two nuts. I was quite the helper. Snorkeling is going to take a lot of work.
But things went so much better when the tiles were back in and we looked at them under the microscope. I think a lot of you have either heard me talk about the tiles, or actually seen them yourselves. What a difference to see them in person! For once on this trip, I actually felt really qualified to do something. I knew the algae there, I knew what I was looking for, it just felt great.
Another project I am working on during this trip is on this disease that is killing algae on our tiles. The disease is not well known, and only was recently discovered. We don't even know whether it is a virus, fungus, bacteria, etc. We also don't know how is spreads, the extent to which it kills, what kind of algae it kills, or anything. Jada and I have been corresponding with scientists and seeing what needs to be studied about it and what we already know. So one of my side projects will be tracking the spread of the disease over the time period in which we are here.
Scientists have always seemed to me to be a bit strange at the all consuming obsession they develop over their research. What a change to see this disease! Suddenly, I didn't care about dinner, time flew, and I started to want to skip the party at the station that night in order to keep doing work with the disease. We've only seen it on one tile so far, and I'm already obsessed. Real healthy, right?
Some people have asked about the food I've been eating, so I thought I'd address that here. In every country I travel to I see a big focus on one specific food. Here it is pork. Of course, pork is the one food I don't eat. So we are making efforts to avoid that. Yesterday we were invited to dinner with friends of Jada's and we had a lentil stew, and tonight Jada made shrimp stir fry. There is also this really great snack restaurant down the road and I've had cheeseburgers there. Yum. We also went out to lunch one day and had raw tuna, which had been marinated in lemon juice, then in coconut juice, in a stir fry salad. It is a local classic. Fish is really fresh here. Later, Jada and I are planning to make sushi with fish we get. Other than that, the supermarket is pretty regular. Although, the best produce is at the gas station. I have no idea either.
There has been a undergraduate program here for the past 2 months, and they are leaving tomorrow, so to celebrate they are throwing “Gump Prom” tonight. So that is where we are off to.
Love to all,
Emily
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Field work
Today was the first day of real field work. Ahh!! The highs!!! The lows!! Anyways, I will articulate all that happened.
Well to begin with, I had no idea all the things you have to think about when you are conducting research. It is not just going out in a boat, jumping in the water, and doing stuff. We actually spent part of the morning at a hardware store looking for specific wrenches. We weren't even sure what size was right, because all the measurements were in the metric system. Why on earth would we need wrenches? More on that later.
Anyways, after that was lunch then field work! We spent a fair amount of time getting ready because Jada was training me and showing me everything we had to do to get ready including how to get the boat free from the dock and everything. Like I said, lots of things to think about. After loading up everything we were ready to go!
Our sites are about twenty minutes away from the center, so we had a fair boat ride. On the way there, there were a good amount of waves, and the boat ride was choppy. As you are going over the water, the water is aquamarine colored, and you can see under the water big, round, brown spots. These are the corals.
Jada has been doing this for a while, so she knows where all of her reefs are located from the seat of the boat, even though there aren't any markers. It's pretty impressive. So our plan for the day was to loosen nuts that were holding the tiles onto the reef, hence, needing the wrenches. Not exactly what you expected research being, huh? At least I didn't.
The first reef went ok, I got the good wrench (it turns out the wrenches we ended up buying were too big. It appears that it would be helpful if I had some handyman skills, but, alas, that is not the case). The second reef was where the trouble started. I didn't have enough weight on, so I kept floating away while I was trying to loosen nuts. The bad thing about diving too, is that you have too much time to think. I started getting upset because I kept thinking, “I can't touch the tiles, I can't touch the coral, there are rock fish in the sand, I can't touch anything.” And it didn't help that my vest was too low on my tank, and my head kept hitting my tank. In other words, there were a lot of troubles.
I came up from the first dive feeling fairly frustrated and upset. Jada made me feel better, though, and we made some adjustments so the second dive of the day would go better. I ended up wearing almost 18 pounds of weight. In salt water, most people wear about 8-10 pounds. So this was fairly ridiculous. Apparently, women have more fat than men, which makes them more buoyant. So I am just made of fat. Nice to know.
The second dive went much better, I stayed on the bottom, and was able to unscrew nuts fairly quickly. So at the end of the day, I was feeling pretty good.
I can tell you, one nice thing about field research is that you come back at the end of the day, and don't feel guilty about not going to the gym, or going for that run. You've been doing physical labor all day. So I come back, and write long messages to you!
More later, love to all,
Emily
Monday, March 10, 2008
A little info about Moorea and what made the island
Oh my gosh, the picture upload actually worked! Uploading or downloading anything at Gump is strictly regulated because it uses so much bandwidth and the connection is slow as it is. I will try to upload more, but it appears I can only do one photo at a time. This is a picture of the lagoon here, and you can see the mountains in the background. Moorea is very mountainous because at one time it was a volcano, but it slowly started disingrating (bad word choice, any scientists out there will hate me for it), and now it is no longer active. As it collapsed, a fringing reef was created around the island. This reef used to be the base of the volcano, but now it is merely a reef that surrounds the island like a ring. It is about 500-1000 meters away from the island. In the lagoon (the part inside of the reef) it has pretty calm waters and there is a ton of coral. Nearer to the fringing reef, the coral is pretty beat up and there is not a ton of living coral because the waves are constantly breaking on it. Outside of the reef there is a lot of coral as well, but the waves are harsher, and you are not as protected if you are diving out there. Because of that, most people conduct their research in the lagoon. But there is still some pretty incredible stuff outside of the reef; a couple of the grad students went diving out there not too long ago and came back with these incredible photos of sharks and sea turtles swimming amongst them. Because it requires bigger boats and more bravery than at least I am equipped with currently, we won't spend a lot of time outside of the reef. Jada's study sites are inside the lagoon. I actually won't be diving that deep. The coral that we will be working with are only about 6 feet below the water surface. We'll be heading to the sites and diving later today, so there will probably be a post later if the internet holds out.
Love to all,
Emily
Moorea.
Ahhh!!! I'm here!
The rest of the trip was ok after the Spirit of Delta. The flight to Tahiti was ungodly long. The only movies that were shown were ones I had never heard of (Martian Child, anyone?), or just other random choices. I saw Elizabeth (the second one) and Bee Movie, suprisingly cute and scientific. Anyways FINALLY into Tahiti at 11 PM their time, 5 AM Florida time. The first smells of Tahiti were Tahitian gardenia (same smell as ours in Florida, but much smaller), humidiity (I realize this isn't a smell, but it was a lot to handle), and burning things (apparently they burn a lot of trash in French Polynesia because their few trash dumps are quickly running out of space). I ran into Jada in the lobby, and was happy to see a familiar face. I waited forever at the baggage claim, and my bags never came (I had checked them in Tallahassee all the way to Tahiti, which was probably a bad idea). When the crowds finally cleared though, I saw my luggage in the corner of the room. Turns out, it made it onto the earlier Tahiti Nui flight that day. Anyways, I broke the cardinal rule of customs on the way out, and made eye contact with the official, so he stopped me and asked me a bunch of questions. Arghhh...
Finally got out of the airport, and headed to Chez Fifi, this pension across the street from the airport, because we couldn't get to Moorea that late in the night. Nothing remarkable to write about here, except that sleeping was tough because it started pouring, and there was tons of noise from that, then the roosters started crowing at the break of dawn. There are sooooo many chickens here. I don't know what's up with that. The only other thing I can remark about this pension is that there were two turtles in a bucket there, and I pointed them out to Jada, and she speculated that they were for eating. Yuck.
This morning we took the plane to Moorea. It was literally, a ten minute flight. In other words, my sort of flight! The island is sooo beautiful. I will post pictures later. We are at Gump now. As it turns out, there is a huge undergraduate class here now, taking all of the rooms in the dorm, so Jada and I got an awesome bungalow on the hill all to ourselves. It is super luxe, but Jada reminds me that it is not usually like this. Whatever, I will enjoy it while I can.
Mainly, today we unpacked our stuff, research supplies, set up all of our dive equipment in a locker, and just got things settled. At the end of the day, we went for a quick swim. It was just incredible. All of the corals I've only seen in the museum collections were all there, living next to one another with anemones and sea cucumbers there too. And where we swum was apparently the bad spot to see corals! It is so incredible to see them in their native habitat.
So now I'm exhausted (jet lag is not that bad this time, but bad enough), so I will write more later.
Love to all!
The rest of the trip was ok after the Spirit of Delta. The flight to Tahiti was ungodly long. The only movies that were shown were ones I had never heard of (Martian Child, anyone?), or just other random choices. I saw Elizabeth (the second one) and Bee Movie, suprisingly cute and scientific. Anyways FINALLY into Tahiti at 11 PM their time, 5 AM Florida time. The first smells of Tahiti were Tahitian gardenia (same smell as ours in Florida, but much smaller), humidiity (I realize this isn't a smell, but it was a lot to handle), and burning things (apparently they burn a lot of trash in French Polynesia because their few trash dumps are quickly running out of space). I ran into Jada in the lobby, and was happy to see a familiar face. I waited forever at the baggage claim, and my bags never came (I had checked them in Tallahassee all the way to Tahiti, which was probably a bad idea). When the crowds finally cleared though, I saw my luggage in the corner of the room. Turns out, it made it onto the earlier Tahiti Nui flight that day. Anyways, I broke the cardinal rule of customs on the way out, and made eye contact with the official, so he stopped me and asked me a bunch of questions. Arghhh...
Finally got out of the airport, and headed to Chez Fifi, this pension across the street from the airport, because we couldn't get to Moorea that late in the night. Nothing remarkable to write about here, except that sleeping was tough because it started pouring, and there was tons of noise from that, then the roosters started crowing at the break of dawn. There are sooooo many chickens here. I don't know what's up with that. The only other thing I can remark about this pension is that there were two turtles in a bucket there, and I pointed them out to Jada, and she speculated that they were for eating. Yuck.
This morning we took the plane to Moorea. It was literally, a ten minute flight. In other words, my sort of flight! The island is sooo beautiful. I will post pictures later. We are at Gump now. As it turns out, there is a huge undergraduate class here now, taking all of the rooms in the dorm, so Jada and I got an awesome bungalow on the hill all to ourselves. It is super luxe, but Jada reminds me that it is not usually like this. Whatever, I will enjoy it while I can.
Mainly, today we unpacked our stuff, research supplies, set up all of our dive equipment in a locker, and just got things settled. At the end of the day, we went for a quick swim. It was just incredible. All of the corals I've only seen in the museum collections were all there, living next to one another with anemones and sea cucumbers there too. And where we swum was apparently the bad spot to see corals! It is so incredible to see them in their native habitat.
So now I'm exhausted (jet lag is not that bad this time, but bad enough), so I will write more later.
Love to all!
The Spirit of Delta
Note: This entry was written while at LAX, but posted in Moorea.
So I was going to post this entry while I had a six hour layover at Los Angeles (LAX) but the wireless cost $10 for a day, so I decided to save my money. I had thought the Miami airport was hell on earth, but it appears that LAX has usurped that title. It is just miserable. I had to leave the airport and drive around the parking lot to switch from the domestic to the international terminal. It took me nearly 3 hours to finally get to the gate I was leaving from. Pure misery!
Anyways, the flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles was actually pretty eventful for a plane trip. I got on and the flight attendant kept saying over the loudspeaker “Thanks for joining us on this very special day for us.” Now I know I'm special, but come on. I was seated in the back of the plane and the door was open so snow kept blowing in at me for the first 15 minutes. Not that fun. Finally, though, we got back to why it was such a special day for Delta. As it turns out, the plane that I was on was the first new Delta plane in something like 6 years, and this was its inaugural flight. The flight model was the same plane that flew the world record for longest distance, from Hong Kong to London, the LONG way. Now THAT would be a miserable flight to be on. I think this was the first commercial flight of this type of airplane.
So apparently, there were a ton of people on the flight who had come specifically to fly on this inaugural airplane. Who does that? People who have too much money and too much time on their hands, I guess. What do you get to Los Angeles, and then hop on the next regular plane back home? Anyways, I'll continue. There was an off duty pilot, a bunch of flight attendants in training, and a few airline engineers on board. When I heard it was the first time this plane had ever flown, I was actually pretty unhappy about it. I kept thinking, “Titanic was on its inaugural trip too...” It turns out that the only problems we had were that the TVs weren't working at the beginning of the trip (every person had their own television in the seat in front of them) but the engineers got it fixed. The TV system was pretty nice; the TVs were touch screen, and you could choose television shows to watch, or movies, or music, or games. Some of the new release movies and games cost money, but the TV shows were free, so I watched them. There was also a problem with some passenger, the flight attendants kept asking the passengers if anyone spoke German or Dutch. As far as I saw, there were no takers. What a sorry commentary on the state of foreign language education in America.
It was a pretty classy airplane. The first class was pretty luxe, they had seats that were in individual pods, and the seats turned into beds. Even our bathroom had wood floors. No food though except for a snack class, which wasn't fantastic since it was a five hour long flight.
Anyways, they gave a big speech at the end about how this airplane was so special, and that Delta fought to keep Delta their Delta, and that the CFO had christened it a few days before the “Spirit of Delta” and it was probably in part my exhaustion and my motion sickness from the endless turbulence, but I actually got a little teary eyed. Over an airplane.
The airplane is mainly going to be used for its Asian routes, so maybe one day you will be heading with Delta to Asia and you too will ride this magical airplane that “is for all of the Delta employees.”
Anyways, more interesting stuff later, I'm sure.
So I was going to post this entry while I had a six hour layover at Los Angeles (LAX) but the wireless cost $10 for a day, so I decided to save my money. I had thought the Miami airport was hell on earth, but it appears that LAX has usurped that title. It is just miserable. I had to leave the airport and drive around the parking lot to switch from the domestic to the international terminal. It took me nearly 3 hours to finally get to the gate I was leaving from. Pure misery!
Anyways, the flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles was actually pretty eventful for a plane trip. I got on and the flight attendant kept saying over the loudspeaker “Thanks for joining us on this very special day for us.” Now I know I'm special, but come on. I was seated in the back of the plane and the door was open so snow kept blowing in at me for the first 15 minutes. Not that fun. Finally, though, we got back to why it was such a special day for Delta. As it turns out, the plane that I was on was the first new Delta plane in something like 6 years, and this was its inaugural flight. The flight model was the same plane that flew the world record for longest distance, from Hong Kong to London, the LONG way. Now THAT would be a miserable flight to be on. I think this was the first commercial flight of this type of airplane.
So apparently, there were a ton of people on the flight who had come specifically to fly on this inaugural airplane. Who does that? People who have too much money and too much time on their hands, I guess. What do you get to Los Angeles, and then hop on the next regular plane back home? Anyways, I'll continue. There was an off duty pilot, a bunch of flight attendants in training, and a few airline engineers on board. When I heard it was the first time this plane had ever flown, I was actually pretty unhappy about it. I kept thinking, “Titanic was on its inaugural trip too...” It turns out that the only problems we had were that the TVs weren't working at the beginning of the trip (every person had their own television in the seat in front of them) but the engineers got it fixed. The TV system was pretty nice; the TVs were touch screen, and you could choose television shows to watch, or movies, or music, or games. Some of the new release movies and games cost money, but the TV shows were free, so I watched them. There was also a problem with some passenger, the flight attendants kept asking the passengers if anyone spoke German or Dutch. As far as I saw, there were no takers. What a sorry commentary on the state of foreign language education in America.
It was a pretty classy airplane. The first class was pretty luxe, they had seats that were in individual pods, and the seats turned into beds. Even our bathroom had wood floors. No food though except for a snack class, which wasn't fantastic since it was a five hour long flight.
Anyways, they gave a big speech at the end about how this airplane was so special, and that Delta fought to keep Delta their Delta, and that the CFO had christened it a few days before the “Spirit of Delta” and it was probably in part my exhaustion and my motion sickness from the endless turbulence, but I actually got a little teary eyed. Over an airplane.
The airplane is mainly going to be used for its Asian routes, so maybe one day you will be heading with Delta to Asia and you too will ride this magical airplane that “is for all of the Delta employees.”
Anyways, more interesting stuff later, I'm sure.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
The Journey begins....
Nearly seven months and back again!
So Saturday starts my next visit overseas, this time to the South Pacific to Moorea, French Polynesia. Just a little background to all of this... as some of you know, I am a Zoology major, and have been conducting research in the department for a little over a year. I am completing my senior honors thesis on algal succession in the presence and absence of a certain fish that lives in our coral reef territories. All of my work has been through photo analysis of metal tiles that were mounted onto multiple coral reefs. A big portion of the field work that we will be doing is collecting these tiles, photographing them in the lab, and removing microinvertebrates from them. A lot of the creatures that we collect will be discovered to be new species, which is quite exciting.
I will be going to Moorea for a little under two months with my mentor, a graduate student at UF, Jada. I'll be working with her, SCUBA diving multiple times a day, and snorkeling to help aid in conducting experiments and collecting data and specimens. Jada and I are both associated with the museum on campus, and we will be collecting specimens for the invertebrate collection there. The museum is part of an ambitious new project that will be tracking biodiversity around the world. DNA is extracted from the specimens that we collect, and are put into a massive database that scientists use to link species from around the globe.
While we're there, there will also be two other graduate students from our department there that I have worked with in the past, Shane and Adrian. Shane is actually a Ph.D. student from New Zealand, but he was at UF last year on a grant.
We'll be residing at two research stations, one being the Gump Research Station (administered by the University of California at Berkeley) and CRIOBE (Centre de recherches insulaires et observatoire de l'environnement) owned by Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes (obviously, this is the French research station). Both of these stations have scientists at them year round conducting experiments, collecting data, and teaching classes. You can find out more about them at http://moorea.berkeley.edu/ and http://webup.univ-perp.fr/ephe/anglais/criobe.htm.
I think that's all you need to know for now. Hopefully, this is a good background into why I'm going there, and what I'll be doing. If you have any questions, please post them under the comments section. I'll be writing again once I get there. Saturday I fly out and I'll be spending a night in Tahiti before I take a plane Sunday morning into Moorea.
Best,
Emily
So Saturday starts my next visit overseas, this time to the South Pacific to Moorea, French Polynesia. Just a little background to all of this... as some of you know, I am a Zoology major, and have been conducting research in the department for a little over a year. I am completing my senior honors thesis on algal succession in the presence and absence of a certain fish that lives in our coral reef territories. All of my work has been through photo analysis of metal tiles that were mounted onto multiple coral reefs. A big portion of the field work that we will be doing is collecting these tiles, photographing them in the lab, and removing microinvertebrates from them. A lot of the creatures that we collect will be discovered to be new species, which is quite exciting.
I will be going to Moorea for a little under two months with my mentor, a graduate student at UF, Jada. I'll be working with her, SCUBA diving multiple times a day, and snorkeling to help aid in conducting experiments and collecting data and specimens. Jada and I are both associated with the museum on campus, and we will be collecting specimens for the invertebrate collection there. The museum is part of an ambitious new project that will be tracking biodiversity around the world. DNA is extracted from the specimens that we collect, and are put into a massive database that scientists use to link species from around the globe.
While we're there, there will also be two other graduate students from our department there that I have worked with in the past, Shane and Adrian. Shane is actually a Ph.D. student from New Zealand, but he was at UF last year on a grant.
We'll be residing at two research stations, one being the Gump Research Station (administered by the University of California at Berkeley) and CRIOBE (Centre de recherches insulaires et observatoire de l'environnement) owned by Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes (obviously, this is the French research station). Both of these stations have scientists at them year round conducting experiments, collecting data, and teaching classes. You can find out more about them at http://moorea.berkeley.edu/ and http://webup.univ-perp.fr/ephe/anglais/criobe.htm.
I think that's all you need to know for now. Hopefully, this is a good background into why I'm going there, and what I'll be doing. If you have any questions, please post them under the comments section. I'll be writing again once I get there. Saturday I fly out and I'll be spending a night in Tahiti before I take a plane Sunday morning into Moorea.
Best,
Emily
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