You all are probably confused on why I´m updating on a Thursday. Well, let me break it down for you. Last night we all stayed in a hotel in one of the little towns waiting for the storm to pass. Before we arrived in Casitas, we packed all of our belongings into the dive shop, put the boats on shore, borded up anything that could fly away, etc. The waves passed the lagoon were enormous, but so gorgeous. After we arrived in town, we settled in our hotel rooms, ate, and pretty much chilled the rest of the evening. The hurricane is currently downgraded back to category 1 and is now just a tropical storm. Sounds scary but basically all that I have noticed was a lot of wind, some rain (although it apparently rained heavily early in the morning) and an increase in humidity. Not exactly what I was imagining for a hurricane but I´m happy this is all we got. We´re leaving for Punta Gruesa in a couple hours, where we have to unpack everything that we did yesterday. Bust. But oh well, it was good to leave for a little bit and have a REAL bed and a hot shower. We´re going to have a full day tomorrow and half day on saturday, so hopefully I´ll be able to talk to some of you saturday afternoon/sunday. We´re trying to see if we can do something for the Day of the Dead. I don´t really know what they do here for it, but either way I want to be apart of it.
Other then the random hurricane warning and evacuation, life on base has been good. Still enjoying myself to the fullest. Although, October 24 made for the best day of my life. I dove first wave with 3 other volunteers and one of the staff members. And as we were going through our PI (point intercept invertebrate species list) IDing different organisms we heard sonar. And then the boat moving around above us. We knew that dolphins were near us. We all were looking around in circles, but the visibility wasn´t too good so it was hard to see where they were. Finally, the lighting was just right and I saw my first wild dolphin. Even better was the fact that I was scuba diving while seeing it. I saw two more while we were down there, and we basically cut the dive short with what we were doing and were looking for dolphins. It was mezmerizing watching them. I started screaming underwater and even got a little teary eyed in my mask. It was so surreal. After we surfaced, we quickly took off our scuba gear and put our snorkels in. We met up with the other boat, who were already in the water waiting for the dolphins. The two boats were circling all of us, creating a wake that the dolphins like to play in. We waited for about 10 minutes and finally the dolphins came back to us. They were really active and playful with us. It was so much fun just swimming with them. There were six of them that hung out with us, but apparently there were 10 others hanging around the boat. We saw bottlenose and spotted dolphins. It was incredible, and I still can´t believe it happened!
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Life on the Yucatan
I have officially completed my third week of my internship. Not too much to update yet, we basically do the same thing everyday. But everyday is always a good day on the Yucatan Peninsula! We dive everyday, sometimes twice a day if you're lucky. One wave even got to see 18 dolphins ! So far I've seen 11 barracuda, two turtles, huge lobsters, shrimp, and numerous species of fish and coral. It's an incredible feeling seeing these amazing organisms in their natural environment. It's even more amazing being in this environment with people who love it just as much as you do.
This is going to be super short, seeing how I really don't have much to update you all on. Basically, this is the life.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Scuba Deb
I can´t believe it´s only been a little over a week since I have left. In that span of time, I completed my Open Water Certification and last friday I finished my Advanced Open Water Certification. And we are also close to finishing our Emergency First Responder Course as well!
I don´t even know where to begin to explain how my life has been in Puenta Gruesa. Here is my best attempt at explaining this amazing adventure I´m having.
There are 9 staff and 26 volunteers on base, from 12 different countries. Mostly England and Australia. Everyone´s accents are starting to blend a little bit together, and it´s been pretty funny listening to the different pronounciations of words and different usages of words. I´m 1 of 3 American volunteers, and the only one representating the Pacific Northwest! Woo! The people are absolutely wonderful. I can´t believe I get to spend so much time with such like-minded free spirits.
Every morning we get up around 6 o´clock and start our "duties". This varies with what group you are in, but it´s either boat duty, communal (cleaning the palapa, the toilets, etc), grounds (raking the sand so sand flies can´t multiply!), or kitchen duty. Kitchen duty is by far the hardest, considering you are cooking a meal for 35 people using really basic ingredients. The food has been pretty good so far, but as you can imagine, sometimes the portions are a little smaller than you´d like.
We´ve had a thunderstorm pretty much everyday. But the rain is refreshing and really reminds me of home. I´ve already taken two rain showers and had my two military showers. Did I mention we shower once every four days? Since we dive pretty much everyday, and have copious amounts of sunscreen/BUG REPELLANT on, I´m sure you´re realizing what kind of state were all in. But it´s okay, we´re all in it together and loving it.
After duties, we have breakfast and then kit up (get ready to dive). There are normally three waves (2 groups of divers at a time) which normally take about 5 hours. Since I completed my Advanced Open water, we´ve been busy doing our skills. The dives that we did are Peak Performance Buoyancy, Naturalist, Navigation, and finally the Deep water dive. That was probably my favorite, then the Navigation. For the deep water dive, we were under for about 16 minutes and were at 96 feet. We saw numerous lion fish (which are invasive!) and a barracuda. We also played a bunch of games underwater, and even brought an egg down and had some fun with that. Diving has been awesome. And with every dive I´m seeing my skills improve and am feeling more and more comfortable in the water.
After diving, we either work the compressor, the radio, or have been studying for our fish and coral ID tests. I´m on the coral team, and have about 50 scientific names I need to have memorized relatively soon. Bleh. After all of that, we have dinner, have a debrief and usually go chill out on the beach if the weather is good. This last week it´s been really windy and stormy, so it´s been really refreshing to go out and have a beer on the beach with everyone.
We did a beach clean up on friday, and found a disgusting amount of debris on the beach. You wouldn´t believe the amount of garbage that´s floating around in the Caribbean. We have a half day on friday and have a full day off on saturday. Most likely you guys will get an update from me on saturdays. On base, we have no internet, no phones, and are 45 minutes away from town. We basically live in the boonies and are surrounded by mangroves aka breeding grounds for thousands of mosquitos. All of the volunteers and staff have a ridiculous amount of bites on our bodies from numerous types of bugs. It sucks, and there suuuper itchy. Probably the only thing I dislike about this trip. I´m even almost all out of the bugspray I brought from home!
Well, that´s just a summation of my trip so far. There are so many more details to give, but not enough time. Basically all you need to know is I´m having a great time and you´ll hear from me on saturdays!
Oh! and I forgot to say, thanks for the birthday wishes! My program started on my birthday and although it was definitely a different kind of birthday, it was great. After dinner, the staff turned out the lights and brought out a cake and everyone sang happy birthday to me. Definitely one of the best birthdays yet.
I don´t even know where to begin to explain how my life has been in Puenta Gruesa. Here is my best attempt at explaining this amazing adventure I´m having.
There are 9 staff and 26 volunteers on base, from 12 different countries. Mostly England and Australia. Everyone´s accents are starting to blend a little bit together, and it´s been pretty funny listening to the different pronounciations of words and different usages of words. I´m 1 of 3 American volunteers, and the only one representating the Pacific Northwest! Woo! The people are absolutely wonderful. I can´t believe I get to spend so much time with such like-minded free spirits.
Every morning we get up around 6 o´clock and start our "duties". This varies with what group you are in, but it´s either boat duty, communal (cleaning the palapa, the toilets, etc), grounds (raking the sand so sand flies can´t multiply!), or kitchen duty. Kitchen duty is by far the hardest, considering you are cooking a meal for 35 people using really basic ingredients. The food has been pretty good so far, but as you can imagine, sometimes the portions are a little smaller than you´d like.
We´ve had a thunderstorm pretty much everyday. But the rain is refreshing and really reminds me of home. I´ve already taken two rain showers and had my two military showers. Did I mention we shower once every four days? Since we dive pretty much everyday, and have copious amounts of sunscreen/BUG REPELLANT on, I´m sure you´re realizing what kind of state were all in. But it´s okay, we´re all in it together and loving it.
After duties, we have breakfast and then kit up (get ready to dive). There are normally three waves (2 groups of divers at a time) which normally take about 5 hours. Since I completed my Advanced Open water, we´ve been busy doing our skills. The dives that we did are Peak Performance Buoyancy, Naturalist, Navigation, and finally the Deep water dive. That was probably my favorite, then the Navigation. For the deep water dive, we were under for about 16 minutes and were at 96 feet. We saw numerous lion fish (which are invasive!) and a barracuda. We also played a bunch of games underwater, and even brought an egg down and had some fun with that. Diving has been awesome. And with every dive I´m seeing my skills improve and am feeling more and more comfortable in the water.
After diving, we either work the compressor, the radio, or have been studying for our fish and coral ID tests. I´m on the coral team, and have about 50 scientific names I need to have memorized relatively soon. Bleh. After all of that, we have dinner, have a debrief and usually go chill out on the beach if the weather is good. This last week it´s been really windy and stormy, so it´s been really refreshing to go out and have a beer on the beach with everyone.
We did a beach clean up on friday, and found a disgusting amount of debris on the beach. You wouldn´t believe the amount of garbage that´s floating around in the Caribbean. We have a half day on friday and have a full day off on saturday. Most likely you guys will get an update from me on saturdays. On base, we have no internet, no phones, and are 45 minutes away from town. We basically live in the boonies and are surrounded by mangroves aka breeding grounds for thousands of mosquitos. All of the volunteers and staff have a ridiculous amount of bites on our bodies from numerous types of bugs. It sucks, and there suuuper itchy. Probably the only thing I dislike about this trip. I´m even almost all out of the bugspray I brought from home!
Well, that´s just a summation of my trip so far. There are so many more details to give, but not enough time. Basically all you need to know is I´m having a great time and you´ll hear from me on saturdays!
Oh! and I forgot to say, thanks for the birthday wishes! My program started on my birthday and although it was definitely a different kind of birthday, it was great. After dinner, the staff turned out the lights and brought out a cake and everyone sang happy birthday to me. Definitely one of the best birthdays yet.
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