Christmas Tree Worm

In the early scenes of the recent movie Avatar, several of the alien creatures are based on real life marine organisms. One of them is based on the Christmas Tree Worm (Spirobranchus giganteus), which are quite abundant in our area. If you've seen the movie, you'll recognize it here:

Christmas Tree Worm

Of course, they're quite a bit smaller in real life, only about an inch or two. They fan out, collecting food suspended in the water and retract when disturbed, just like in the movie. Despite not really looking like it, they are actually a worm, a segmented worm to be exact.

Christmas Tree Worm from South Caicos

Multi-Colored Christmas Tree Worms in Sosúa, Dominican Republic

Blog Book

Over the last five days or so I've been hard at work formatting the blog to be printed as a book. I found an independent publishing company that will print as few as 1 book at a time for a reasonable price (http://www.blurb.com/). The blog is great to have, but you can't hold it and it feels somewhat impermanent. Even though the electronic version will be hosted online indefinitely, I thought it would be nice to have a bound copy when our time here finally ends.

Blurb even provides free design software for the layout. It's somewhat buggy and can be slow, but it does the job. It'll be printed in full color with all the text and photographs. Obviously dynamic elements like videos and external links won't work, but it will include references so they can always be found.

Arranging the layout for printing is a hugely time consuming task (5 days of work has only gotten me up to August!), but I think it will be worth it in the end. Fortunately, I've been able to break it up with exciting things like diving with a Hammerhead!

A GREAT Dive

So many times when Brett and I have headed out for a dive, he's said "I hope we see a hammerhead," to which I've often replied, "I hope we don't!" Today, he got his wish. We actually had several shark sitings throughout the dive, starting with a small reef shark that came over to greet us as soon as we arrived at the wall. He startled me a little bit because he was moving swiftly towards us... and then Brett started me when he began swimming right back at it with only his camera as a buffer between them. But the little guy was harmless. In fact, there was a school of rainbow runners playfully swimming circles around him.

Reef Shark and Co.

So we watched them for a short while and then turned left to continue our dive towards "the grotto", and were even greeted by a couple of other reef sharks along the way. I spent a good portion of the dive admiring the many angel fish and scanning sponges for a (pea-sized) juvenile smooth trunk fish, and Brett worked on expanding his underwater photo portfolio. I think we saw about 3 lionfish too.

Lionfish

After leaving the wall and heading back towards the boat, Brett stopped to get a picture of a huge channel crab that was hanging out under a coral overhang.

Channel Crab

He was intently shooting away, and I was sort of hovering by him when I looked up to find another shark swimming straight towards me. This one was no little reef shark though. It was HUGE. And funny looking. (That was my first thought.) I even wondered for a split second if it could have been pregnant... I was so focused on its oversized belly. But when my gaze shifted up slightly, I realized - without a doubt - that I was looking right into the eyes of a Great Hammerhead. And it was looking right back at me.

I started banging on my tank to get Brett's attention. There was a third diver with us too, but she had already spotted it. Brett, however, was still enamoured by the crab and ignoring my noise-making. He said later that he heard me and guessed that I wanted to show him something, but just thought to himself, "I really want to get this shot... I'll see whatever it is in a second." Little did he know that what I wanted to show him presented much more exciting photo opportunities than what he was looking at. Once the hammerhead was within probably 15 feet of us, it sleepily turned to the right and sauntered off. It was apparently mildly curious about us, but then didn't find anything to hold its attention. Brett did finally look up in time to see the hammerhead, and he took this photo as it swam away.

Great Hammerhead

(Close up)

So exciting! I still wouldn't say that I "hope" to see a hammerhead on my next dive, but I'm thrilled to have seen one! And (more to the point) to have lived to tell about it!

Mothers' Day

Happy Mothers' Day, Moms!!!

I picked you some flowers.

And Jessee made you breakfast in bed.

We hope you both have a great day!

Mural Project

Jessee is, once again, in Provo for the day seeing off the students. Yet another semester has come to a close. This semester Jessee took on a huge project as part of SFS's community engagement/service. The principal of the primary school asked if we could paint them a mural. We knew it would be a huge undertaking from the beginning, but the students were excited about leaving their mark on South Caicos, so we accepted.

The Initial Design

Just how much work this mural was going to be didn't become clear until well beyond the point of no return. On top of her regular job responsibilities, Jessee spent hours and hours working on and planning for the mural. It seemed to be on her mind constantly. She was getting up before 6am to work on it in the mornings and was still anxious that it wouldn't be finished before the students left. In fact, she didn't even want me to write about it in the beginning in case it didn't get finished!

Laying out the measurements.

Paint's on the wall. There's no turning back now!

There were times, I'm sure, that she regretted ever starting it. But there were also many times that I could tell she was really happy how it was coming along and what it meant to both the SFS and the primary school students.

The primary school kids were impressed already.

Progress was slow when students were busy with their coursework.

Little by little.

Weeks compressed into a series of pictures.

Getting there!

Some of the finer details are starting to be added.

Almost there.

In the end we finished, just barely in the nick of time, before the students left. Yesterday morning (at 6am!), we finished up the top border. Later that morning the school kids and some of the students involved gathered for a photo and to dedicate it to the school.

The final strokes.

Some of the finer detail.

I think there were days of effort put into this lobster.

That's a fine looking Grouper.

Damselfish

I think we forgot to give this shark an eye.

It started as a spear, but we changed it to a net.

Goofy looking Conch.

The octopus was Jessee's design.

The paint was still wet when we unveiled it.

Finished!

Home Again, Home Again

I arrived safely back on South Caicos on Saturday and got settled back in right away. On the way back from the airport we drove past the Primary School so Jessee could show me the progress they'd made on the mural they've been working on. It's nearly finished, but the students will only be here for a few more days, so they're really down to the wire getting it done.

Above Santiago

I brought Jessee some chocolate truffles from the DR (good chocolate is one of those things that doesn't exist on South Caicos). But they were a little worse for wear after the journey.

Before

After

Sunday is the day off, so we spent it snorkeling at nearby Six Hills Cay. It was nice to go there because we'd never gone before. You can see it from South Caicos, but it's not in our usual range. Compared with the Dominican Republic, the water is so clear and blue! I'm realizing how spoiled we've gotten being here. Not many places we'll go after this will measure up. You have to be remote, anymore, to get to see water this clean and fish this abundant.

On the boat near Six Hills.

Time Traveller?

This morning I'll be heading to the airport and back home to South Caicos. When I initially decided to fly instead of take the boat, I was excited for this return trip because of a unique situation. The flight is only 45 minutes, but you cross a timezone on the way. In effect, I'd arrive 15 minutes before I had left!

Time Machine

Unfortunately, I later found out that the Dominican Republic no longer observes Daylight Savings. So twice each year the country switches timezones. In the Spring and Summer months, the country is in the Eastern Timezone, the same as the Turks and Caicos, so I won't get to timetravel. Dang!

While I was here, though, I learned something quite humorous on the topic. Years back the Dominican government attempted to adopt daylight savings in an attempt at simplifying things for international business. Rather unpracticed at it (or perhaps missing something in the translation of "spring ahead, fall back"), the Dominican government had everybody switch the clocks the wrong way! Christian, one of the people I dove with in Sosúa, told me for several weeks after the change there was a lot of confusion and it was getting dark really early! Just imagine the chaos that would cause. Hilarious! Anyhow, they decided to scrap the idea altogether and went back to not observing daylight savings.