Hurricane Dean

A hurricane came through! The centre ended up passing north of us, hitting Martinique, Dominica and other islands quite hard. Barbados ended up with the equivalent of a tropical storm. Still, we loaded up on canned goods, washed all our old bottles out and filled them with water, and hurricane proofed the apartment. One of the coolest things about the place we are staying is that the living and dining are are open. The front door is a grate, as is the main wall facing the ocean. This means we get fabulous breezes and can hear the ocean all the time. This also means that if a stom comes through, wind and rain go through the entire area. The kitchen and bedrooms are closed off, but we still shut all the windows and shutters, and brought everything inside.

Everything was fine. The worst of the storm passed through during the middle of the night. We did dive Thursday morning though, and the ocean was getting incredibly choppy and the current was picking up as well. On Saturday morning, when these pictures were taken, it was quite a site. Our little beach where we load our boat was gone. The reserve, which normally has no waves, looked like a good beginners surfing point. The holes had all overflowed as well, so Katrine and I went for a walk with our cameras in their casings. The water coming out of the whole was almost like a slick. Much yuckier than the last time the hole broke!

In the end, everything was fine. The electricity didn't even go out!

Don't mess with mother nature.

The Other World

The ocean is a whole different world. If you haven't seen BBC's Blue Planet, check it out. There are eight episodes, the cinematography is phenomenal, and it's absolutely breathtaking. While you're at it, check out their Planet Earth. I haven't seen it, but I will as soon as I have the chance!

First up is the dwarf wrasse. This guy was hanging out in the sand by a little rock quite close to the beach at our institute. He has the funky thing sticking out of his head, and he's got cool colours, too!

This we (out team) affection- ately call 'petit pois' or 'little pea.' It's a juvenile smooth trunkfish, of which I posted a terminal (adult) phase a while ago on my blog. Their little fins flutter incredibly fast, and they just sort of booble around in the water. If a damselfish attacks, they just end up rolling around.

This, when we are doing intrusions, we call a b-bot, or blenny bottoms. There are many different species, and they are small (2-5 cm), so if we had to go down to identify each one, we'd miss other intruders in out damselfish territories, as well as affecting the normal pattern of intrusions.

The new site we've just started has lots of crabs in it, which is a lot of fun. They tend to be shy and hide in their shells if you approach them to quickly. I found these two guys, who at some point, will probably duke it out over something, like one of their shells. Talk about growing pains!


This is a secretary blenny. They hang out in tiny holes in coral, and just stick their heads out. They are so cute!

Last, but not least, is the yellowhead jawfish. Thanks to Ian Popple and Matt Chapman for telling us that there are a fair number of these guys right at the buoy where we moor our boat. Today, Sylvain, Sebastien and I dropped the girls of to work on their mini-project, and we moored the boat, dropped down, and then swam back. When we got down there, we found a decent size sea cucumber as well. The jawfish hide, but if you hang out and don't move around too much, they eventually come out of their holes, and hang out above them vertically. I was too far away to try flash, and any colour correction I tried ended up looking weird.

Anyways, the ocean is full of amazing things. There is an enormous worm called 'The Thing' and it can apparently get up to six feet long!! No wonder they call it the thing!

Hibiscus

Katrine found some beautiful hibiscus (at least I think they are), so I took a pretty picture to make you all wish you were down here with me :D

Broken Hole

In Barbados, there are these things called 'holes.' They are brackish, freshwater pockets right by the ocean. One hole near our current site is the roosting place for egerets. This past Tuesday, after a long and rainy night (and morning), the hole near our site broke. In other words, it overflowed and went straight into the ocean. The white-ish foam in the ocean was the line of where the hole had overflowed into the ocean. The problem with the holes is they stink, and have all sorts of lovely things in them (like sewage and other icky things). Needless to say, we were already on stand by since there was thunder (no diving during thunderstorms!), and the hole put the dives on hold for two days. It happens every year, and apparently, this year wasn't so bad - usually the water is more brown!

Kadooment!!!!

Monday was Kadooment. Uhm, wow is all I have to say.

There are bands, which are groups of people in colourful costumes, who assemble in the stadium and do a little show and get judged for costumes and choreography. We didn't go to that, but we did go to the parade that follows. After the stadium, the bands hit the street and travel through the streets. Each band has a music truck, one of which had two live singers which was very cool. The better bands had booze truck(s), and the really god ones had port-a-pots as well. For those that weren't fortunate enough, you ducked behind a building and did your business there. Due to the amount of booze, there was an incredibly amount of drunk people (as in being dragged along by your friends).

The dance style that seems to be preferred here can basically be called hard core bump and grind, and I'm not posting some of the more debaucherous (is that a word?) pictures.

Anyways, despite it all, it was lots of fun, great costumes and colours to be had, even if it was raining and we had to keep ducking for cover. (yes my camera survived!)

Camera casing is back!!

Guess who finally got a replacement for the lost underwater camera casing?!?!

Bridgetown Market

Crop-over fever as officially taken over Barbados. Crop over is the celebration of the end of the sugar cane harvest. It is now more and excuse for parties, parades, and various other things. Over the weekend, there is the Bridgetown Market. They shut down a section of the main highway near Bridgetown, and vendors and crafts people come to display and sell their wares. At the market this year, there was a group of men who played some music, but it was an incredibly hot day, so I think they spent more time resting in the shade than actually playing :-)

One of the places was a glass making place, where they use blowtorches and tools to shape glass into beautiful pendants and beads. Vanessa and I both asked for custom pieces, which they made on site. I got a fabulous little fish that looks like a cross between a angelfish and a damselfish, with gold touchs on the fins. It's quite nice, and at $25 Barbados (2 Bajan = 1 USD), the price as right too. There were tons of places to eat, though it took Sylvain and I a couple tries to find a place that had both chicken and macaroni pie, but we found one and enjoyed our lunch. As we were leaving, we found one loan dancer lost in his world. Mind you, the sun was glaring and it was 34C, but he certainly had a great time dancing right in front of the speakers!

Charlotte

Well, we temporarily adopted a red footed tortoise that I found on the pathway to the beach. They are considered rare, or have the potential of becoming endangered, so we named her Charlotte, made sure she was well fed and hydrated and then released her. Seb and Sylvain went for a walk to find a place to let her go.

Sylvain found a snail and wanted to take some pictures of Charlotte and the snail, so he put the snail in a cup. Of course, the snail made it's great escape attempt, but luckily, we got it on camera, and were thus able to foil the plot with the help of our dinosaur helper.

Then of course, there is Charlotte and the snail. The snail was uncooperative (can't really blame it), so it's just the snail shell and Charlotte.

Here's to Charlotte!

L'amour d'escargot

After a wonderful dinner at Bistro One, a restaurant not to far from us, we were out in the parking lot when Katrine mentioned the snails were out. The first one we found was next to some guano, so we found another one. Low and behold, as I was about to take pictures, we found another two, being quite amorous. Well, I should say we think they were being amorous, but apparently, when snails actually do mate, they come up together neck to neck. You can read more about snails, love, and their nasty little love darts here.

Shipwreck, and NC-17 rated stuff

My boyfriend came down at the beginning of July, and on one of my days off, we borrowed the car and went looking for the obsolete, desolate beaches that nobody goes to. The roads were bumpy, but the views were spectacular. We went to one beach where the slope down was so steep, we decided that short of hiking gear, we couldn't make it. Of course, some spear fisherman came up the slope in fip flops, so I guess we just don't know the trick!

On our way, we passed Morgan Lewis Beach, which is where we saw that spectacular leatherback turtle (check the archives!) laying her eggs. A beach on the map, but no signs indicating where it is - just a pair of tire tracks! There is a half of a yacht on the beach, and as part of my experimentation in post processing with pictures, I stuck a texture payer on it, and did a lot of fiddling around. I kind of like the effect, but I realize it's not everyone's cup of tea. If you hate it, I'll still like you :D

Up next, we have some NC-17 rated pictures of mongooses. Mongooses were introduced to the island in an attempt to control pests, presumably rats. Now, they are a pest in themselves - elongated rats! However, we've got a family (maybe more than one) on the complex. During breakfast, we were treated to a little bit of lovin'. The male would chase the female around the yard. When he finally got a hold of her, he would hold her around the stomach and lift up and then stand on her hind legs to try and get her to sit down. He was only successful about 1 out of 4 attempts, as they would run into the bushes and then appear again.

If it is the same family, they've got some babies as well. Today I saw a juvenile mongoose try and jump up a small ledge, miss, and try again. When he finally got up, he was so excited, he started jumping - almost like skipping around.

Anyways, a friend has mentioned interest in writing a book on animals and mating behaviour. Maybe these pictures can get used?

The British Invasion

So we've had two British blokes who go to uni in Newcastle here for a month. Tonight, they decided to make a nice pork casserole and baked potatoes with garlic bread for dinner. As we're waiting, working on whatever needs to get done, Andrew comes in, and hesitantly says 'uhm, we've got a slight problem here.' Needless to say, there was a grease fire in the oven, where the spuds were baking. After much running around to shut the gas line off, find the fire extinguisher, and get it out, we were left with a lovely smoking mess.

The pork casserole was delicious, however, despite the adventures surrounding dinner. We teased them about the extra carbon taste in our meal, and we've dedicated Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire song to them!

Women in the Workshop

As part of Katrine's project, we must remove some damselfish. She has tried relocating them, but they have some type of built in homing device and almost always end up back at their territory. Short of loading them into a boat and taking them to th other side of the island, it means removing them. To accomplish this, we spear them. However, when you hit a rock at close range, the spears bend a lot, making them difficult to use again. We needed more, so Katrine got more metal rods and the two of us headed over to the workshop to make the points and the notched ends for the elastic. We got to learn how to use a grinder and a metal file and made a whole slew of new spears for the team. Who needs men? :)

Grooming

AS I've posted earlier, there are green monkeys who wander around the institute. Sylvain and I were sitting outside working when we heard this odd noise. It didn't sound like a bird, so we went to investigate. There was a female sitting on a roof calling. She had an itch or something so at one point was scratching her leg at the same time.

Sure enough, a male showed up, and the two of them sat together on top of one of the buildings. The female groomed the male, looking for parasites and gunk on him. They moved around a bit, and then up into the trees, and then seemed to go their separate ways.

I had run for my camera as soon as we saw the female, fully expecting her to have left by the time I got back, and I was very happy to find out she still there!

Cheers

Hawksbill Babies Release

So the turtle folks dropped by last night with a bucket of baby hawksbill turtles that had hatched and were making their way to the posh Sandy Lane lobby instead of the ocean. I mentioned it in a previous post (with the crazy picture of the huge leatherback turtle), but the babies us the ambient light of the ocean to orient themselves to the water. The problem with all these fancy hotels who insist on keeping their lights on (because the customers want to see the ocean apparently) is the turtles think the hotel is the ocean. The turtle people get called in, they collect them, and the take them to another part of the beach that hasn't been over run with hotels and bright lights.

So, we walked up the beach a short way to heron bay where there are no hotels. We got some of them going, but a good portion of them hadn't woken up yet. The first bunch got off to great start, but then the rest just kept on sleeping. We tried some tricks to wake them up, but they seemed to enjoy their snooze. The turtle folks got another call so they gathered up the rest and said they'd try another time when they were a little more awake

Moral of the day: if you go to a beachside hotel that has known turtle nesting spots - tell the managers to turn off their lights at night!

Oh, and yes, I did ask if I could use flash. They said as long as the flash was coming from the direction of the ocean, it was fine.