San Salvador 2011
The end of a beautiful adventure
Saturday, February 19
Morning
We all packed and after breakfast loaded our bags onto the truck, knowing that this was
to be our last ride :-( When we finally went to the airport, I tried to fill up my eyes with that beautiful blue as we rode along the beach for one last time. We took a group picture before we all went boarding. I hope we can see each other again as I really enjoyed getting to know all my new friends.
Fin
Under the rain!
Morning in front of Gerace Center under a rainbow...
The rain and the wind being what they were, we carried on our
building project from yesterday. This meant that we (or rather John for the most part) had to carry these heavy cemented structures (about 1000 kilos) we put together unto a net that we then swam 30 meters off shore to then dump them to start this new “housing project”. The pictures do not do justice to the wave and the wind that we needed to fight in order to accomplish this. I was happily impressed however by this project and the birth of a new eco-system with already many juvenile fish such as Angel fish, Surgeon fish, Goat fish, Cottonwick and French grunts that Colin did not see but heard… ha, ha…..!
Lunch at a local restaurant
As you can see on the picture, we all ordered the local fried
snapper. It was very tasty and a change of pace from cafeteria food. We also met a liturgical dancing group who allowed me to take their picture so that I could compare it with you guys’ uniforms :-)
A word from everyone :-)
John:<< Bonjour! Greetings from sunny San Salvador. Your teacher, Ms. Tesson, was a wonderful addition to the team. In addition to teaching us French, Ms. Tesson collected valuable scientific data and helped constructed reefs in order to save an ecosystem. She has spoken very highly of you all, and I wish to see you all on San Salvador one day following in Ms. Tesson’s footsteps.>>
Colin:<<You can be very proud of your teacher. Madame Tesson is La Femme Grenouille who helped save the coral reefs!>>
Anne:<<The changing conditions made for a really interesting week as the plans for each day kept changing. In spite of this we managed to create a reef which is already inhabited by many fish and all recorded for posterity by Madame Tesson!>>
Petra:<<My week saving the ecosystems and the Bahamian coral reefs was a really enjoyable experience and largely “grâce à” the energy and the positive attitude of Madame Tesson. How lucky you are! Miten onnekkaita te olette!>>
Carolien:<<This has truly been a holiday with a difference! The weather conditions made some of the tasks rather challenging, but with Mme Tesson’s sense of humour it was always a joy. Doing a project like this is very rewarding and I would encourage everybody to sign up for an Earthwatch project. Ik hoop tot ziens in San Salvador of in Jersey!>>
Jacquie:<<My few days with Christine as my neighbour in the Research Station have been so much fun; much laughter mixed with serious discussions about the ecology of the reefs and most important of all, new friendship. I am really looking forward to seeing you all when I come to visit you in New York.
Debbie:<< Be very proud of Ms Tesson! An Earthwatch expedition is not an easy ride, and she has coped with choppy seas, perfected her snorkeling skills, learnt new scientific techniques, can now tell different coral species apart (a very difficult task!) and collected some valuable good quality data for a 20 year research project. Not bad for a week’s work! And she has always done it with joy and enthusiasm. I hope she will inspire you to be interested in and learn more about the marine environment – a fragile, fascinating place!
Morning
This is again like a déjà-vu. We went to Rocky Point and as the pictures attest the water was way too rough to go and do any kind of recording. Yesterday’s experience was enough so John prevailed over our safety, (thank you John) and so we did some profiling again.
Because John was about to weep in frustration, he decided that we were going to build some housing for Doris’ extended family . Just kidding ; we were going to build a small coral reef, type of habitat, on the beach in front of the center where the water was much calmer. And for that, we needed to look for big rocks to attach some cement structures to them and carry them back to the boat launch.
Girl power !
Afternoon
Serious work happened in the afternoon ! Who would have thought that drilling was so much fun ?In fact we drilled a hole in every rock found in the morning so that we could attach the cement structure that would become an artificial reef. So first we drilled, then
we attached a metal rod upwards and to that the artificial cement structure and voilà a new piece of property on San Salvador Island for the habitants of the water, like fish and corals. All we needed afterwards was to imserse them in the water away from the shore. Life was good today for us workers as you can tell by the last picture :-)
READY TO START WORKING FOR REAL !
The day has finally arrived and we were all eager to start counting. The warm weather helping and the gorgeous Lindsey Beach really talked to us. I paired with Carolien to work on the transect and even though we were both beginners, we were sure to do the work justice. Where did we go wrong ? It started that I had some difficulties hooking the rope down on the reef. After a couple of retries I finally got it but the other side floated away…When that got fixed we could not retrieve our equipment from the mesh bag (keep in mind that there is some wave, you are trying to breathe and everything becomes a lot harder in the water when you do not want to touch the reef with your fins. Then we dropped our thermometer, then we lost the top of the container to take a water sample, then I got the rope all tangled up in my fins and then around my belt nearly losing it….shall I carry on? And me who thought that this was going to be easy ! When John called it a day I was exhausted and not so proud of my work but I had survived it!
WHO THOUGHT THAT BAHAMAS MEANT HOLIDAYS?
The afternoon took us back to French bay thinking that we could find a calmer sea. I paired this time with Debbie, a real pro! In fact the waves were much bigger, and the visibility was very bad, so I dont need to tell you that again the work was again very fatiguing . We recorded how many corals we could count inside a grid that kept waving with the current. The waves kept pushing me on the reef, and writing underwater while trying to breath was a challenge. (Knitting while speaking is much easier) .When we finally stop working there is also the much dreaded time to get out of one’s wetsuit but I should have kept it since we had another rain poor while on the truck back to base. Right now the wind is the worse we have had and being in the middle of the dry season, you could not tell, really.
A Very Important Person joined our group today
Jacqueline McGlade the the Executive Director of the European Environment Agency came to join our team. I had the pleasure to speak with her during meals or on the truck and because she is so down to earth and so friendly and enthusiastic about her job, she agreed to a special little interview for you all and this is what she said : << Next week, in Nairobi, Ministers and heads of state will meet to discuss the beginnings of a world environment organization; an organization that will solve the problems of pollution and try to make sure that children everywhere can grow up in a clean, healthy environment. I will be joining the discussions, bringing one key message that is we will never be able to solve world poverty without first taking care of the environment. >> She also agreed to come and speak in Marymount in May when she will talk to the United Nations. :-)
PS. pictures of this morning are very deceiving to the kind of weather we had this afternoon and evening but I know that you guys would prefer these beautiful blues and greens rather than grey and angry sea…..
Panoramic vue of the beach in front of the center
8:30 am – back in class
The wind is still very strong so this morning we are in the lab so that we can be taught on how to make our readings in the water, which is called transect readings. Along a 10 meters line that we will have attached to a pin on the reef, we will measure the percentage of bleached hard corals, the H20 of the water, the temperature and the visibility. There is also a Point Intersect reading with a 1 square meter grid where we will need to record the number of hard corals, soft corals, sponges, algae, sand, rock and other (fish for ex. ). We made a “dry run” of our work this morning and then we fixed the material we are going to use. Needless to say that I would have prefer the beach like below :-)
1:15
We went to find a beach where the wind was not so fierce and drove to French Bay. After gearing up ( I had to wear a belt with weight to allow me to dive more easily) we all went in. The water was not very warm and the current was strong. The waves were quite big, enough for me to swallow sea water twice as I was not facing them, but John was happy with our assessment of the various corals he was pointing to us. I saw again all of Doris’ extended family waiting to hear any of them telling me something funny. I picked up a beautiful shell that I brought back to the beach. After the dive we dressed up warmly (I even wore my snow hat) because we ride at the back of the truck and it is VERY windy, even cold windy.
Happy Valentines’ Day to everyone! XO
Morning
Since the wind has net receded John took us on a nature hike behind the Gerace Research center which used to be a military US navy base to listen to Russian submarine. After meeting Mr Gerace, we hiked behind the base to a catchment for a cistern, showing us where the water for our showers is coming from : the sky!
Then we saw some local flora such as the periwinkle, or banana trees or papayas or sweet almond trees with beautiful red leaves. Then we walked on a small trail, seeing many beautiful tourist trees ( pic of the bark) to finally arrive at an interior lake with salted water where mangroves grow freely.
Afternoon
The wind went down and so John took us to Lindsey’s beach to make our first dive. The water was not very warm but I was wearing all my gear as well as Ms Erskine’s mask and tuba. We stayed in the water a little more than one hour but it was plenty. We were taught on all different type of coral and sponges that we are going to have to be able to recognize on our future dive. I saw a lot of different type of fish like the tang fish ( Dory in the movie Nemo) , some bright yellow, some bright white, a big one that had many different colors called a rainbow fish (very appropriate name). I stayed a long time looking at it because it was so beautiful.
When we came out of the water we all sat on the tree above to get warm and then went on to visit ruins of an ancient plantation before getting back to base.
Beach profiling at French Bay
7:30
I went to have breakfast with the other persons from the team, Anne and Carolien who is Dutch, from Jersey Island , Debbie from England who works at the Earthwatch headquarters, Petra who is Finish, from Copenhagen and Colin from Northern Ireland, both working for the European Environment Agency, an EU organization. A total European team ! There is a bad news today, the wind has not receded and it is raining ! Did I bring the bad weather from New York ?
9:30
Rain stopped but not the wind so we took the truck to go to French bay. The road was empty and we went beach profiling. This is nothing fancy like the series on TV, it is just the measurement of the erosion of the slope of the beach. I saw a crab and a beautiful queen conch. Not much you are thinking but this is a beginning :-)
1:15
We went to profile another beach with some more clothes but the rain got us. We had to take shelter and I met a family with children who had the same idea as us. Everyone was wet and cold. Needless to say that this is not what I was thinking about the typical weather here.
7:15
New lecture on Bahamian geology that was very interesting. Apparently San Salvador is a very young island with its oldest rock dating only 200 000 years! And my students who thought that 50 was old :-) Last but not least, all rocks found on the island are sedimentary. The perfect quiz question for my students to know if they are following me.
1:35
After a 49 minutes flight from Fort Lauderdale in Florida where it was overcast and raining, I arrived in the island of San Salvador where it was sunny and warm. The team came to pick me up with the open truck . They drive on the left side just like in England. Afterwards we went to the capital which is Cockburn town to buy bottles of water in the only store of the city (pic of orange building) which counts just a few houses. The store vendor gave me back change with Bahamian dollars.
2:40
After reaching the center we put on our swimming suit to have our first snorkeling experience. Since it was windy, the water was very choppy but our Senior Ecologist John showed us an example of many different kind of soft and hard corals (check out the pdf) and even a long spine urchin who had been near disappeared (they are coming back) .I saw many beautiful fish, some blue, some yellow . I saw an anemone like the one where Nemo lived. After an hour in the water, we got out. I can say that I had many cramps on my feet who were not used to have fins but rather hug boots since Christmas.
5:30
Dinner was served in the cafeteria along many other groups from Colorado or even Cornel University or even a doctoral French speaking group from Switzerland . The wind became very fierce and has not gone down, making scary sounds. The day ended ay 8:30 PM with a class on coral reef geology where I learned many things that I will talk to you on my next post.
I am so excited to be participating in an Earthwatch expedition in the Bahamas. Not only I am, like most of you, tired of the snow and cold, I am more importantly excited to be part of a research team working on environmental protection.
Here is a map of where I will be going.
On Saturday I will fly from New York to Fort Lauderdale where I will pick up another smaller flight to the island of San Salvador.
