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.

Trumpetfish

This is a trumpetfish. They are very cool fish that look very weird. Their mouths are at the end of their snout, or whatever you call it. Cameron mentioned how it must be weird to be able to see your own mouth and what you eat while you are eating.

Birds!

In honour my friend in Montreal who is an avid birder, I went through and found some more pictures of birds that I haven't put on my blog yet. It's been fun down here as there is now a couple of folks from Harvard working on evolutionary development stuff on birds here. They were originally going to work with Galapagos finches, but apparently obtaining permits has become incredibly difficult, so they are now working here in Barbados. So, one of them is working on the bullfinch, and the other is working on the bananaquit. The first two pictures are the bullfinch, and the thirds is the bananaquit.

Next up is the Gray Kingbird (thank to Cameron Rutt for the positive ID!). The bananaquit, loggerhead and one of the finches pictures were taken during the course in May at Gay's Cove on the east side of the island. The other finch pictures is an overzealous finch who enjoys finding the crumbs in the dining area.

Lastly are egrets (cattle I think). About a five minute walk from the institute is a large tree that the egrets go to to roost for the evening. As the sun sets more and more and more egrets come flying in. It's a spectacular sight, and gives my zoom lens a good workout.

St. Jean Baptiste Day

So today is St. Jean Baptiste Day. To everyone's amusement, nobody seems to really know what the day is about except it's a really good excuse to eat food that's bad for you and drink a lot. So, like the good people we are, we celebrated St. Jean Baptiste day Bajan style. We made poutine, except we had no cheese curds, so we used cubed cheddar instead. To those who don't know what poutine is, it's french fries, poutine sauce (like a gravey), and cheese curds. It's very bad for you and very yummy!

Then we made a fire (sort of) in the BBQ and Ian shows us how to roast marsh- mallows properly. Audrey's boyfriend and his cousin were in Barbados for the weekend, so it was a great time for everyone!

The infamous gorilla tripod made an appearance as well, much to everybody's amusement.