Little Cayman Pictures!

Long overdue, I know, and there will be a wrap-up post soon!

Huh

Is it just me, or is weird that (1) snow and cold did not come to the northeast until after all of us FSPers had left the country, and (2) it's supposed to get warm tomorrow, the day we get back, even though it has been cold for so long? I mean, it's 0 degrees in Hanover right now, with a high of 29 for today, but I just looked at the forcast for the rest of the week, and tomorrow is supposed to be 44, and then in the 40s and 50s for the rest of the week! Very strange.

Day 61: Little Cayman

We're leaving on Saturday. However, we're really leaving Friday afternoon, because we're taking a boat over to Cayman Brac so that we don't miss our flight (at 6 am) due to poor weather conditions.

This means that before Friday I need to:

• Finish the Bullet Ant paper from La Selva
• Completely rewrite the Corky Sea Finger paper (ouch)
• Help the TAs edit a paper on Diel Patterns in Fish Behavior
• Finish the Fanworm project and write it up

And . . . all of those papers have to be absolutely finalized. Yikes.

Day 60: Little Cayman

An update has been requested, but this is going to be a short one. I'm really tired (Sea + Salt + Sand + Sun + Swimming = Sleepy), and I think I might be fighting off something, I haven't felt quite right for a couple of days now. It's still fantastic here, though! I jumped on to a project studying fanworms (not as cool as my Beaugregories, but they'll do). Hopefully it will go well, and we'll find some neat trends. The weather is supposed to get pretty rough starting tomorrow, and the wind is already much stronger than it has been. Apparently the front that just dumped a bunch of snow on you guys has made it's way south, and is going to give us a tough time for a while. Hopefully it won't affect our travel back to the States too much, since we're leaving next Saturday. So soon! I love it here, but at the same time I'm starting to feel ready to be home. I've been away from my friends and family for a long time, and I miss people. However, there's still a lot of work that needs to be finished up this week.

And

Another project falls apart. Sigh.

Not going to lie, I'm pretty depressed about it.

Day 58: Little Cayman

My biggest regret of the FSP is that I didn't do a project on the Montezuma Oropendolas at La Selva. I loved them, but I got intimidated at the thought of doing a project by myself. Data collection doesn't sound so bad, but writing an entire paper by myself seemed scary.

However, this is our last project on the FSP, and we have 5 full days devoted to working on it. I've enjoyed some of the projects I've done here on FSP, but I haven't felt extremely passionate about any of them, and only one of them has really felt like "mine." I'm sick of having my name last on every paper because I'm not willing to fight to have it higher.

So I'm plunging ahead and doing a project on Beaugregory juveniles, even though I'm probably going to be by myself. I know it's going to be frustrating, and a lot of work, but I'm hoping it will also be a rewarding experience.

Day 57: Little Cayman

Today was our day off!

This morning we went to the Red-footed Booby pond and watched the boobies and Frigatebirds roost in the trees and fly around. The boobies have fantastically red feet. Then we got ice cream (at 10 in the morning), one scoop of chocolate chili and one scoop of coconut rum for me. Mmmmm homemade ice cream (with maybe possibly real rum, I think, so not only was I eating ice cream before noon, but consuming alcohol as well. Gasp!).

This afternoon some of us went scuba diving. We went off of the beach (instead of off of a boat, like we have the other times). It was fantastic. We swam through a short tunnel, which was a little scary but at the same time amazing and fun, and saw lots of stingrays and two spotted eagle rays and the lovely little fairy basslets, and one of my favorites, the bridled goby. At least, I know they're gobies of some sort, and I think they're the bridled variety. I love love LOVE scuba diving. I hope to be able to do it a lot more.

Sort-of-but-not-really on that topic, I met a young woman here who works on Grand Cayman for an organization called Ambassadors of the Environment, which sounds like a really neat program. She works at the Ritz-Carlton, which hosts the program, and said it's basically teaching kids about the environment and bringing them snorkeling. Here's a quick description from a website about the Ritz-Carlton:

"Ambassador of the Environment by Jean-Michel Cousteau introduces young people to the natural wonders and rich cultural traditions of the Cayman Islands. The islands' ecological resources become a natural classroom and living laboratory in which kids, teenagers and even their parents will learn while having so much fun that they'll never imagine that it's educational.

Each day, the Ambassadors program will be dedicated to a different aspect of Grand Cayman. Active study and eco-excursions will take children on journeys of discovery centered on four areas: Coral Reefs, Mangroves, Wetlands, Woodlands & Wildlife and Caymanian Life & Traditions."

Anyway, there are many such programs in other places (e.g., Hawaii), and she mentioned that they're almost always looking to hire people, and I am graduating in a few months . . .