January 16th means...

And One More Thing...

Jessee thought it would excessive since she already wrote a post today, but I took it upon myself to get everybody to sing before we ate the cake tonight (see the video below). Happy birthday Marilyn.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgc7pR7yB9A)

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday, but I don't know what to do for her. I can't take her out to lunch, as we're about 2,000 miles apart, and I can't buy her a gift I think she'd like, as there really aren't any stores here on South. Even if I mailed her a card, it likely wouldn't get there until Easter. I think... I'll bake her a cake.

Maybe I'll make it a marble cake

Without the marbling effect

I know, I know, my mom won't actually get to eat the cake. (Sorry Mom, if this gesture is only a tease!) But, it's the thought that counts, right? This way she'll know that I've been thinking about her today. And I'm confident I'll be able to convince the staff and students here at SFS to agree to eat the birthday cake on her behalf, purely out of the generosity of their hearts of course!

Happy birthday to you...

Happy birthday to you...

Happy birthday, dear Marilyn...

Happy Birthday to you!

p.s. I love you.
p.p.s. That's supposed to be the Bahama Woodstar hummingbird I keep telling you about.

A Happy Birthday

And a busy birthday. It started out in good fashion. First thing in the morning, I went out with the Smithsonian group on a dive to The Grotto to do some fish collection using quinaldine sulfate (the anesthetic) - there was a delay in the shipment of their preferred chemical, called rotenone. I found it a little difficult to use the stuff at depth (around 95 feet). It only really works on the smallest of fish. Anything larger than a coin only gets "sleepy" from it - I chased a groggy Longsnout Butterflyfish far too long trying to get it. Many of the small fish are quite difficult to get as well. Quinaldine works best when the fish stay in it for some time, so it's easiest to squirt it into holes where they can't escape. The problem then is that they're very difficult to get out. You can do so by swooshing water around, but it's only marginally effective.

After the dive the researchers got back to work in the lab, and I spent some time working on my PhD applications. And after lunch we geared up to go on a second collection outing. This time we were headed to Highland's Bay - an area on the Southeast side of the island. It's an interesting area for all of the odd coral formations, but the water is always very green and murky (probably because of the prevailing ocean current and extensive seagrass beds). Four of us were snorkeling with Hawaiian Slings (a type of spear), and three were diving with quinaldine again. I opted to dive. And, again, it was somewhat "under-productive.". I chased a sleepy damselfish for a while (it's just so hard to let them go when you get so close!) and didn't turn up more than a handful of anything else. It was alright for me - I just like being involved and getting to dive - but I think the researchers were disappointed in what we were able to get. They all kept worrying that the rotenone shipment wasn't going to turn up and that their visit might be a waste as a result. Finally though, we learned when we returned from the outing, it arrived.

There wasn't enough daylight left to use it then (and they had lots of work to do in the lab), so they didn't want to go back out. Ben (one of the SFS faculty) and I, however, decided to go out to Admiral's Aquarium (one of our usual snorkel sites) and fish with the spears for a little while. Admiral's is a shallow patch reef with very clear water and almost never any sharks, so I felt comfortable with the spear there. It can be quite fun to do, but sometimes pretty brutal. I hoped that my kills were swift, but sadly I know some were not. The inner turmoil and reservations I have over taking part in any of this project probably doesn't come across fully in these posts. I've never really killed things before and I can't help but have strong emotions about doing it. There are (at least) two ways of thinking about it. One is from an ecosystem-wide perspective, that we are doing very little harm to each of the species as a whole and essentially none to the environment. The other is on a individual level. Each fish that dies because of us, is a life that has ended, some of which (especially those that are speared) suffered considerably. I try to think of things in the first way, but I inevitably I come back to the suffering inflicted on individual fish.

Our catch from the evening outing to Admiral's was quite good for the short time we were there. I managed to get a Peacock Flounder, a Blue Chromis, a Yellowtail Snapper, a Schoolmaster, a Mahogany Snapper, a Sergeant Major, a Goatfish, and a Yellowhead Wrasse.

Peacock Flounder

Blue Chromis

Yellowtail Snapper

Schoolmaster

Mahogany Snapper

Sergeant Major

Goatfish (poor little guy suffered good bit)

Yellowhead Wrasse

And the rare Brettfish (suffering was minimal).

That evening, of course, I got my favorite carrot cake (and quickly hid the leftovers in the staff refrigerator). And finished the long (but very enjoyable) day off down at the dock watching bioluminescent sea-worms with Jessee and some of the other staff.

Happy Birthday, Brett!

Today is Brett's 28th birthday! It's also the sixth year in a row that I've baked him a carrot cake for his birthday. (He pretty much decided after the first one I baked him when we were living in Olympia that it was a "tradition".)

Step 1: Combine ingredients

I didn't think making the cake here on South Caicos would be much different than making it in the other locations we've lived recently, but as it turns out, this time was quite different. For starters, finding the ingredients was a little tricky. That shouldn't have been the case, as all of the ingredients I needed are regulars on our Sysco food order. However, carrots didn't make it onto the last shipment for some reason, the cream cheese we ordered had all gone bad, and we'd completely run out of butter. So, yesterday, for the first time since I arrived here at the beginning of June, I headed into town with a shopping bag and a grocery list (albeit a short one).

I managed to find all three ingredients between the two small markets we have here, but what I also found out was that groceries on South Caicos are expensive. I mean, really expensive! The bag of carrots I bought was $16, the butter was $6, and the cream cheese was another $6. $28 total. Sheesh. It's a good thing we had flour, sugar, eggs, raisins, walnuts, and everything else we needed here at the center, or I may have had to make Brett a carrot cupcake for his birthday.

Step 2: Bake

Step 3: Layer on the icing and add a little decoration

We're also planning to celebrate Brett's birthday with a trip to the Chicken Bar, a.k.a. the Chicken Shack, at some point. We walk past it regularly and I've been there with other staffers a few times, and it's also one of the students' favorite places to hang out and play dominoes with the locals, but Brett still hasn't been inside. The Chicken Bar isn't really our "scene", mostly because it inevitably involves bad service, greasy food, and sleezy come-ons by extremely inebriated men, but it truly is one of the key components of life and culture here on South. Having lived here and never experienced the Chicken Bar would be unfortunate. Plus, after eating Izzy and Antonia's food for several months now, Brett has acquired a taste for fried chicken and wants to see if the place lives up to its reputation!

Step 4: Make a wish

Step 5: Enjoy!

"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"

Virtual Birthday Card

Creative birthday cards are Jessee's favorite. But coming up with a new idea every year can hard. Believe it or not, this isn't the first website-oriented card I've given (maybe I should think a while longer before making that known to the world).

Happy 29th! I made you this cake*:

* a (slightly) more edible version will be ready for you tonight.