Cultivating Coral

This morning and yesterday afternoon I went with the SFS interns to transplant coral onto the reef balls we had submerged a little while back (see Reef Balls). About a week ago they attempted to do so using the method I mentioned before: gluing them on with a special marine cement. As it turned out, that wasn't the way to go. The cement crumbled in the water and wasn't strong enough to hold the corals in place. Based on his previous experience transplanting corals, Will suggested a new method: zip-tying them in place using plastic cable ties.

Newly transplanted corals.

It's not the most aesthetically pleasing method, but so far it appears to be working really well. This morning we checked closely on the ones we attached yesterday, and the coral polyps were extended and feeding - a very good sign. And, I was told, the corals will eventually grow over the plastic, concealing it within the stony structure.

Healthy looking polyps on my piece of Pillar Coral.

Finding enough coral fragments to transplant is pretty easy. It's part of the coral lifecycle to break apart and grow new colonies. It's only a problem when there's a catastrophic event (like Hurricane Ike last year) or a dramatic change in the ecosystem (like those often caused by pollution, silting, and climate change) that kills off the entire colony. We simply snorkeled on the surface until we spotted a detached piece, then dove down and collected it. They're much less fragile than I expected too. When the polyps are retracted they are protected by the hard structure they've built around themselves (at least, this is the case for hard corals).

Fastening Zip-Ties

In the previous post about reef balls I said that I expected fish to colonize them on their own and almost immediately. I was wrong. Apparently fish are not attracted to plain concrete objects. I was really impressed, however, when I attached a piece of Dendrogyra cylindrus (Pillar Coral) and three fish swam right in and started nipping algae off the dead portions! I pulled the zip-ties tight, backed up, and literally within 10 seconds the fish were there. They recognized the balls as a nice place to live once there was some coral there.

Now we wait and watch. At regular intervals, Will will be taking photographs (with a ruler in the frame) to track their rate of growth.

Our First Dive

On Monday morning, Jessee and I went on our first dive as just the two of us. It was only about a week ago that she got approved to take out one of the boats without another member of staff onboard, so it was one of our first opportunities.

Checking her gauges on the safety stop.

The water was a little bit rough (which, I think, was a little nerve wracking for her), but once we got into deeper water it smoothed out. And, of course, the water is never rough below the surface. Conditions weren't the best (murky water), but it was a good dive. Noteworthy sightings on the dive include a Sharpnose Puffer (Jessee's favorite), a young Hawksbill Turtle, and a massive Grouper (probably 6 or 7 feet). We also swam through the arch.

Hawksbill and Scorpionfish

Here's a video of a large Hawksbill Turtle that I came across on a dive at "The Maze." I was about 100 feet down, and it was just below that:

Hawskbill Turtle
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr_FjgWTwsc)

And today I found a Spotted Scorpionfish, which is in the same family as Lionfish, but they are native here. They are venomous like Lionfish, except they are much more potent and have been known to be fatal. To say the least, I was very cautious around it.

Relying on camouflage, Scorpionfish will remain motionless until you're practically on top of it.

Venomous spines cover its body. You can also (just barely) see the brilliant orange and pink "warning" colors on the underside of its fins. When bothered it flips its fins and extends them to say get out or you're in trouble (I thought it better not to provoke it).

Can you tell where the fish ends and the rock starts?

Concerned Citizens

Last night Jessee and I, along with John the SFS Center Director, attended a meeting of the SCCCA (South Caicos Concerned Citizens Association). SFS was invited to attend the meeting to discuss collaboration opportunities in the organization's efforts to clean up the township. On Saturdays we regularly send a group of students to pick up trash on the beaches as part of the "community engagement," but until now we weren't really engaging with the community.

I didn't really know what to expect of the meeting or of the group, but as I've mentioned in previous posts, I feel somewhat disconnected from the local community, and I thought this would be a good way to change that. We were asked to arrive around 7:30pm (a half hour after the start of the meeting), so the group could finish their regular business before we arrived. Luckily, they were behind schedule. This gave us the opportunity to sit in and observe how the group functioned. It was impressive how seriously they took their business and how formally the group was run; members addressed the president as "Mr President," they passed resolutions, they approved measures, and they used phrases like "let the record show...." This was not a group of amateurs.

When it finally came around to our turn, John spoke for the group. He thanked them for our invitation and talked about what he saw as our common goals. He explained that it was in the interest of SFS to provide a service to the community, such as volunteer labor to clean up trash and unsightly properties in the township, but that it can be a sensitive issue for the School to take up projects like that on our own accord (what does it communicate when a group of outsiders enters a community and decides that it needs to be "cleaned up?"). They all nodded in agreement. The situation, he told them, was much different in the case where we were being asked by the community for help. He happily pledged our support. This Saturday's schedule will need to be reworked, but we will join them in their clean up efforts.

The members of SCCCA were grateful for our willingness to be at their disposal and I felt, possibly for the first time since arriving here, a real connection to the community. As the meeting wrapped up we were thanked for coming and told that we would always be welcome. They scheduled their next meeting (in one week at the same time) and discussed some of the issues that would be taken up, one of which is concerns over the turtle research project that I've mentioned before. I'm very interested in hearing how the project is perceived locally (I have gotten conflicting information on the matter - there appears to be a positive relationship between the community and the researchers, but I've heard there is concern among some that the research is just an effort to bring an end to turtle hunting). I think I'll take them up on their open door policy and attend the meeting next week.

Fall?

The change of seasons can easily go unnoticed down here. We don't get any dramatic change in colors or those crisp evenings that smell like Fall has arrived. I almost didn't realize that September is practically over already. Recently the temperatures have been considerably cooler (though certainly still not what I'd call "cool"). It's more like the length of time that the heat is unbearable during the day has shortened. I will say that nighttime is quite comfortable though. The water temperature has remained pretty constant at about 88 degrees on the surface, which is nice.

All this hot weather has got to be making us soft. It'll be a shock to our systems when visit the families this December. We've just purchased our plane tickets for the Winter break. We'll be back in the States from 17 December to 2 January! We're planning to visit Florida (to see my Leitner grandfather), Philadelphia (to see Jessee's family), Maryland (to see my parents), and (hopefully) a quick trip to New York (to see my Matulis grandmother). Our flights make a circuit from TCI to Florida (17 Dec) to Philadelphia (20 Dec) and back to TCI (2 Jan).

Fishing Licenses

Lately we've been a little lazy about updating this blog. It's not so much that nothing is going on, but more it really takes an effort to keep it up to date. And also, it would probably bore the audience if we wrote about every snorkel, every dive, every Eagle Ray, every shark, and every turtle. I have to say though, I quite like a life where those things are the mundane!

Over a week ago now, we finally got around to getting our fishing licenses (even though open season began on 1 August). We're now cleared to catch lobster, conch, turtles (!), and fish. So far we haven't caught anything (but we've only tried once). But after seeing one of the staff cleaning fresh fish last night for a meal today, I'm newly motivated. Catching lobster should be pretty easy and, of course, catching a conch is simple.

I didn't particularly want this photo circulating the internet, but oh well.

Our one fishing outing so far, however, wasn't for the purpose of food. We're both signed up to help one of the faculty in his fish research project. He's joined up with the Smithsonian and is collecting genetic samples for a broader, Caribbean-wide project. We went out one morning with him to test out a couple of seine nets. What we learned is that they're actually very difficult to use, especially when there's a strong current (which there happened to be). The flowing water pulled the net with such force that it made it almost impossible to walk with it. We didn't catch anything, but seagrass and some sargassum weed!

We'll be hosting a few people from the Smithsonian in October and they'll be bringing some other supplies for us, including Hawaiian Slings and a spear gun. Any sort of spearing of fish is (technically) banned in TCI, but we've gotten special approval from the DECR (Dept. of Environment and Coastal Resources) to use them for this project. This way we'll be able to target the specific fish that are needed for the project instead of pulling up ones that aren't necessary.

Suzie and Jerry

You might remember back in June, in a post titled Suzie, Jessee wrote about a big Green Sea Turtle that was getting some high-tech accessories installed. The other morning we got word from the same researchers that a second captured turtle was getting a satellite tracking device. This time it was a big Hawksbill, affectionately called Jerry. While Suzie was the first turtle caught in TCI to ever get such a device, Jerry is the first male turtle to ever get one, worldwide. In fact, we were told by one of the researchers that male turtles are extremely rare. They're almost never seen and so almost nothing is known about them. That makes the data that will be collected about Jerry's movements very important.

Jerry

Jerry was captured by some fisherman at the nearby Fish Cay. Turtle harvesting is legal in TCI (despite Hawksbills being listed as "critically endangered" by the IUCN). The researchers monitor the dock for turtles that are brought in and the fishermen usually cooperate, allowing them to take data before they're cleaned and eaten. Fortunately for Jerry, he was rare enough to intervene. The fact that the price the researchers would pay had not yet been negotiated even after his transmitter had been installed gives some indication as to how important keeping Jerry alive was (or that a trusting relationship has been established between the two parties).

For updates on each of the turtles you can follow these links:
Suzie: http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?tag_id=90740
Jerry: http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?tag_id=90736 (for some reason Jerry is listed as female on this site, but then properly refered to as "he" below).

Suzie's Progress

Presumably recovering from the stress of her capture, Suzie didn't go far for about two months, but as you can see from her map, she's currently offshore of the British Virgin Islands, some 500 miles away from where she was released (just picture the scene from Finding Nemo where the turtles cruise the ocean currents)! Her waypoints show up somewhat sporadically on the map, sometimes disappearing for days, because a signal cannot be transmitted from underwater. Turtles usually surface about every 45 minutes (presumably less often when sleeping), but Suzie and Jerry have to stay on the surface longer for a point to be registered (there are sensors that turn the transmitter off to save battery power while they're submerged, and they need to dry to activate it). It will be very interesting to follow Jerry to get some idea of just where all the male turtles go.

(Another!) Juvenile Smooth Trunkfish

I spotted my 3rd juvenile Smooth Trunkfish the other day! Unfortunately, Jessee missed it again! This one was quite deep - around 90 feet. And this time, I had a camera!



And here's a slideshow of photos taken over the last week:

Dives and Snorkels from 15-22 Sept 2009
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmatulis/sets/72157622434171526/show/)

Reef Balls

In Jessee's post Goodbye Summer 2009, she mentioned one of the service projects that SFS is involved in: Reef Ball building. For some time, SFS has been making concrete structures to create an artificial reef. Today, we deployed the first batch.


We picked a nice sandy patch down the way from Shark Alley and heaved them overboard. That wasn't until after all of the heavy lifting was finished though. We had to carry them about 100 yards from where we built them, down two sets of stairs, over the dock, and onto the boat. And they must weigh in the range of 300 pounds! The heaviest one took 5 people to move. The stairs were probably the trickiest part. At one point I actually got knocked off the dock into the water. As we were straining to get the ball down the first flight of steps the group wanted to rest, so they started to set it down. But, unfortunately, they didn't give me much warning and one of the boards we were using to carry it was being placed onto my foot. I pulled back to get it out before it was crushed, and when it came free I was knocked off balance. It was very slow coming, but I couldn't keep from going over the edge. It was all pretty funny and I think I started laughing before I even hit the water.




Once the balls were in the water we went down on SCUBA and used "lift bags" to move them into the correct place. A lift bag is a specially designed bag that you anchor to a heavy object underwater and then fill with air from your tank. The air provides bouyancy and lifts the object upwards. We only had two bags for a total of 150 lbs of lift, but it was enough to lighten the load so we could easily push them into place (the water displaced by the ball itself made them considerably lighter to begin with).




The next step will be to transplant corals to get the colonization process started. Fish and crustaceans will quickly move in on thier own (in fact some have probably already found them), but corals take much more time, so we will help them along. We'll go looking for small fragments of coral (or collect some if need be) and then attachment to the ball using a special marine cement. With just a few pieces, they should take hold and grow all over the ball.

Lionfish Hunter

It's been a while since I first wrote about having any reservations about participating in the eradication of Lionfish. As I've spent more time here, learned about the effect Lionfish have on the ecosystems, and witnessed the rising population (I rarely go on a dive and not see multiple fish), I've accepted that they are disruptive and need to be removed. Though I have yet to personally catch or kill one, I've aided and abetted others in doing so. I've spent considerable time developing tools to make it easier and more effective - most recently I added a barb onto our homemade Lionfish spear. Here's a video of it in action:

The Lionfish Hunter
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUqNtGbAvWc)

And also, here are a couple more slideshows of recent photos:

Dives at Shark Alley & Plane
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmatulis/sets/72157622237577785/show/)
13 Sept 2009


Snorkel at Shark Alley and Dive at Maze
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmatulis/sets/72157622372176576/show/)
14 Sept 2009

Iguana Rescue Team

It's hard to believe, but we've now come to the end of our first week with the Fall semester students. They seem like a great group, and have been really enthusiastic about the program, the classes, the community, and the activities so far. After our site cleanup on Saturday, we introduced the students to some of the potential community engagement (formerly known as community outreach) projects for the quarter. Many of them are the same as they were over the summer sessions, but we're also adding in opportunities to get involved with the schools and with various other community groups, as these SFS students will be here for three months and have time to make more established connections with locals. Then, the students headed out for a snorkeling ID session, where they got to practice identifying various species of algae, sea grass, and mangroves before their first Ecology exam this coming week. For dinner last night we had a cookout on the beach by East Bay, and then talked around the campfire about everyone's first impressions of the island. (The students were prepared with lots of thoughtful comments to contribute, as they had just handed in their first "cultural reflection" papers.)

On Sunday, our day off, Brett and I went for a dive in the morning and then drove out to Coast Guard after brunch for a snorkeling trip with three of the other staff members. We parked the van at the tip of the South Caicos handle (known as "Coast Guard," after the abandoned USCG station there) and then swam to Plandon Cay just north of us. When we arrived there we decided to swap out our fins for our walking shoes, and explore the little island a bit. We didn't get very far, however, before stumbling upon a lobster trap that had washed up on shore. That part is fairly unremarkable, as lobster traps are very common near us, but the surprise was that there were six iguanas trapped inside! We spotted them from a distance, but it wasn't until we got up close that we noticed the remains of several more iguana carcasses inside the cage as well. They must have been trapped in there for a long time. In fact, it appeared that the iguanas who didn't make it had been eaten by the ones who did, made evident by the fact that all that remained of the dead were their heads and traces of their bones, skin, and scales.

Iguanas are native to many of the islands in this area, but since the introduction of cats and dogs they've been mostly wiped out. They only remain on some of the smaller cays, so the loss of the ones who died in the lobster cage was heartbreaking. We were determined to free the ones that were still alive! We had basically nothing with us and certainly no tools, so we tried bending the wire with our hands, prying the bars with rocks and conch shells, and coaxing them out with sticks. None of it worked. We were reluctant to put our hands in there because iguana bites are said to be pretty nasty, and often get infected. When we initially approached the cage, the iguanas were frantically jumping around and slamming into the sides, as you might expect a panicked animal to do, but once we went to work trying to get them out they calmed down. It makes for a better story that they could sense us trying to help and were therefore calmed by our presence, but it's more likely that they were just worn out and nearly starved. Either way, their quieted demeanor gave us the opportunity to try another tactic. Marta, an experienced shark researcher, found a piece of rope that had washed up on the beach and tied it into a type of lasso that she has used on many occasions to restrain sharks. We put the lasso through the entrance of the trap, slung it around the neck of the nearest iguana, and used it to pull him, or her, to safety. (They could have physically crawled out on their own, but lacked the problem-solving capacity to find the correct route.) It worked! Now we had the iguana outside the cage, panicking again, but this time on a leash. It was a pretty funny scene to be walking a wild iguana down the beach. It then took three of us to get the lasso off: two to restrain it and one to remove the rope. One of the iguanas began running in circles before we could hold it down, and then struggled so badly it nearly bit a couple of us and almost got stepped on as our feet got tangled in the rope. In the end, they were all freed and we escaped without a single bite and with only a couple minor scratches.

It felt really good to save those 6 iguanas, but it's really sad to think how often this must happen. These traps get lost all the time. It might not be that common that they wash all the way up on shore and trap iguanas, but countless fish and crustaceans must die in the ones lost at sea (recall our last rescue episode where we freed a young Nurse Shark from a lost trap at Dove Cay). In the end, Brett made sure that no more would die in this one by crushing it completely flat and closing off the entrance.

Later on we returned to the center with our heroic tales of iguana rescue. About the whole endeavor, Will commented dryly, "they're not too bright, are they? If I saw a trap full of dead humans, I'm not sure I'd go in." Which was made all the more humorous by impressions of finding and entering an imaginary cage full of human remains: "Hmm, what's this? Oh, it appears somebody's died in there. Well, I'll just climb inside and see if it might make a good snack..."*

*Thanks to Brett for co-writing this entry with me, as I got distracted by work duties halfway through and might not have gotten around to publishing it for several more days without his help. Also, sorry we don't have photos! We made a last minute decision to leave the camera at home because we'd be swimming against a very strong current for part of the time, and then seriously regretted it! (Although, we may not have made it through the current if we'd been carrying more stuff on our backs. It was quite a workout!)

Even More Photos

Here are some more pictures from the last few days. View the slideshows here or (at higher resolution) by following the associated links:


Dive at Troy's Dream
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmatulis/sets/72157622324584412/show/)
9 Sept 2009



Dive at The Grotto
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmatulis/sets/72157622329997730/show/)
10 Sept 2009



Snorkel at Admiral's Aquarium then Shark Alley
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmatulis/sets/72157622332547532/show/)
photos by Jessee
10 Sept 2009

I just want to highlight a couple of my favorites here. The first is of a Horse-eye Jack. They get quite large and aren't afraid of people at all. They'll come right up to you, swim through the middle of groups and circle nearby. This one was by itself and came around us when we were on our safety stop, ascending from a dive:


The other is of a Hawksbill Turtle. Normally turtles are quite timid and wary of people (likely compounded by the fact that so many are caught by researchers and fishermen), but every once in a while if you approach them very slowly, in an non-threatening manner, and limit direct eye contact (especially important), they'll let you get really close:

If you look closely, you'll notice large gouge out of this one's shell (on it's back, towards the top. It appeared to be mostly healed, but my guess is that it was hit by the prop of a motor boat.

More Photos

Now that we've got an underwater camera, the number of photos we want to share might get a little overwhelming. So I created a Flickr account to display them in slideshow format. Don't worry, we'll still have pictures in all of (most of?) our posts. This is just so you can see more. You should be aware, though, that some email clients and feed readers might not display these slideshows properly (in the same way that they often do not display embedded videos). So it's always best to view our blog on the web (http://livingoncaicos.blogspot.com/).

The shots in the slideshow below are from yesterday - a snorkel at Shark Alley in the morning and a dive at The Grotto in the evening:


Slideshow
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/42339135@N07/sets/72157622196675231/show/)

"Miss Big and Beautiful"

It's taken me a while to get around to it, but I'm finally posting a few photos from my birthday last week. Brett made a strawberry shortcake (see below), and Jan and her friend Darryl, who was visiting from Scotland, made a chocolate fudge cake (see further below). They were both gorgeous and even more delicious!

After dessert, we celebrated with a night out at the "Miss Big and Beautiful" pageant that just happened to be held at The Regatta on the same day. Tickets were a little steep ($20/ea.!) but we decided to splurge. The show was interesting, to say the least. At least as much of the entertainment took place off the stage as it did on it. Brett and I arrived about 30 minutes after the starting time, which turned out to be about an hour and a half before the show began, so we spent the time people-watching and chatting with a few of the kids we know from Saturday swim lessons. We were happy to have snagged seats in the front row, despite being "late". At one point while we were waiting, we got a short spurt of rain and the water droplets that fell through the bright spotlights shining onto the stage looked almost white. A bunch of the boys jumped out from under the small roofed area and starting jumping around, yelling "It's snowing! It's snowing!".

At around 10pm, the emcee turned on the mic and introduced the pageant, at which point a group of women picked up their chairs and set them down directly in front of where Brett and I were seated, creating a new front row. We exchanged somewhat perplexed glances, and then just scooted our chairs a few inches to one side or the other so that we could still see the stage.

The emcee explained that the "Miss Big and Beautiful" pageant has become an important part of TCI tradition because it serves as a reminder that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. The event is in no way a mock pageant or an excuse to ridicule its bodacious (as one of the women described herself) contestants, but rather a celebration of the many and various curves of the female figure, as well as of each contestant's inner beauty.

There were only three contestants from different islands within the TCI, and from the very beginning the crowd had picked a clear favorite. We sat through the casual wear segment, the swimwear, evening wear, and talent show segments, and also stayed to hear each of the women answer the questions that had been submitted by the judges, one of whom was our very own Ben (SFS lecturer). The questions pertained to hurricane preparedness, HIV/AIDS prevention, and also making use of a single wish, were it to be granted by a genie. Unfortunately, Brett and I were so tired by that point in the show that we couldn't make it until the end, and so we didn't hear the announcement of the winner. However, we learned the next day that, as expected, the title "Miss Big and Beautiful 2009" went to the initial crowd-favorite, a South Caicos local (pictured below).

"Miss Big and Beautiful 2009"

Boatless

The boats have been out of the water for the past few days. Initially, they were taken out because Tropical Storm Erika was heading our way, but after it petered out we just took them out to clean them. So we've had to make do with limited access to the water. All the same, we made the most of it. On Saturday (after a long day of work for Jessee) we took the kayak across the channel to nearby Dove Cay. It's a one person boat, so after futile attempts to put both of us in it, Jessee just swam. We sat on the small rocky outcropping on it watching two resident Ospreys for a some time and then went for a snorkel with our new underwater camera.

Eagle Ray

Notice the (now healed) injury it had on its right wing - a bite mark, possibly from a shark.

Osprey

Banded Butterflyfish

Yellowfin Mojara

Flamingo Tongue

Yesterday morning we went for a walk (in the unbearably hot sun) out to the salinas with our new bird ID book. We didn't have binoculars, so it was pretty difficult to see anything, but we tried nonetheless. We saw several types of herons and egrets, the flamingos, some Killdeer, and plovers.

In the afternoon we drove out to Highlands Bay and went for a snorkel from the shore. The water is very green and murky over there (due to the prevailing current and extensive sea grass beds), but the there are really interesting coral formations with tunnels and caves all throughout. Here are a few of the pictures from there:

Eagle Ray

Eagle Ray

Eagle Ray

A large brain coral

This morning Jessee got up really early to head for the airport. She'll be spending the day in Provo, greeting the students as they arrive (!). They're coming already! It's hard to believe.

Our New Toy

As Jessee mentioned in her last post, we've purchased a new underwater camera. We haven't had much time to use it yet because everybody's been busy preparing for the next group of students, but I did take it out on a dive the other day. Here's some of what I got:

Caribbean Reef Shark

Horse-eye Jack

Swimming through a canyon.

Yellowline Arrow Crab

Eagle Ray

(The same) Eagle Ray

(The same) Eagle Ray (again)

And one more time.

Sting Ray

From the front.

Did I mention the sun has made me very blonde?