A Full Weekend

This past weekend was action-packed! Saturday we did our weekly site clean-up in the morning, community outreach in the afternoon, and somehow the students managed to fit in two snorkeling/diving sessions during the day as well. Saturday night we camped at Long Beach, which is just past High Point on the handle of South Caicos. It was so beautiful! We cooked burgers and "veggie burger-like patties" on a homemade grill we brought with us, played an intense game of wiffleball (staff vs. students), and sat around the campfire roasting marshmallows and listening to guitar music and original poetry for hours. Some adventurous souls even went for a night snorkel to observe the bioluminescence and other nocturnal sea creatures. The stars were out and there was a faint glow coming from Grank Turk (the capital of TCI) across the water.

Saturday morning we woke up early to come back to the center, unpack, and enjoy our DAY OFF! (Every Sunday is a day off for all of the staff and students, except for whoever happens to be on kitchen duty.) After brunch I went with 6 other staffers to "Coastguard". Coastguard is what we call the beach at the very tip of the SC handle where the U.S. Coastguard apparently set up camp in the early 80s to crack down on the drug trade en route from South America to the US, but it's not in operation anymore. From Coastguard we island-hopped all the way up to East Caicos. The others were snorkeling but I kayaked and carried extra water, sunscreen, and snacks for the group. One of the staffers is doing some independent research on spotted eagle rays, and so she was trying to get photos of as many as she could. And there were a ton! I spent a lot of time just trying to keep track of who had spotted one and where I should direct our underwater photographers. "Over here... there a huge one!" "Quick! I've got 3 of them!" "Here's one with a bite taken out of its left side... hurry!" (Shown here is one of Jan's successful shots.)

Other exciting sightings included several iguanas on East Caicos (which is uninhabited, by the way), baby lemon sharks feeding in the seagrass about 20 feet from us, and an osprey carrying some kind of a fish in its talons and flying directly over our heads! I was exhausted and the tops of my knees were slightly pink at the end of the day, but it was well worth it! When I got back I thought about how Brett likely spent his weekend... being responsible for a group of early 20-somethings, camping out on Saturday night, kayaking all day Sunday, and getting paid for it too! Hopefully he had some exciting wildlife sightings of his own, and managed to avoid a sunburn!