This past weekend was the best one I've spent on the island yet. On Saturday CeCe, Rick and Justin (my lab partners), and Amy and Ashley (the wives) set out for a day of deep sea fishing on the Yesaye with True Blue Fishing. Rick is first mate on the boat. It was a beautiful, blistering day and the ocean was a clear blue. We were treated to a bottle nose dolphin contingency of 30+ animals about a mile off shore. Justin started us off with a nice barracuda, and CeCe (not to be outdone) followed with an even bigger baracuda who she dubbed Genevieve. Genevieve will be BBQed tomorrow. Several naps and many applications of sunblock later, Amy added to our BBQ with another barracuda. The fishing slowed down midday, and all of us took turns in the "hot seat" while the sun shimmered relentlessly off the water. We chased several bait balls and saw plenty of sailfish but they were uninterested in the lines. Seven hours later we were headed back to shore. I was taking a snooze in the fighting chair once again, when captain yelled to call it a day, and reel 'em in. A second later we saw a flash of fin. The fish hit one line, then another, and another, and Boom! was hooked on its last attempt. The fishing fight of my life began. Amy helped keep my rod tip up as the boys bellowed at me to reel (which I tried to do to no avail). Those fish are strong! About 20 minutes later I landed a beautiful 70 lb sailfish who we then released. Elated and tired we hauled in the lines and went to shore.
On Sunday, I prepared for my trip to the other side of the island and Levera beach. Months ago, me and my good friends, Matt and Micah, signed up to assist the Ocean Spirits Turtle Research group with the Leatherback turtle nesting period. We had just one problem...we needed wheels. As with everything in Grenada, renting a vehicle was another humerous glimpse into customer service. At first we could not find a rental agency that would allow us to take a car for one day. They wanted a minimum of three days. We finally wandered into a rental company in an apartment building just outside of campus. With some wheeling, dealing and batting of Matt's eyelashes, we procured a Jeep Escudo (the vehicle of choice in Grenada). She was worn, torn and without AC but all in all, in better condition then I was expecting. Horns in Grenada are second only to brakes in importance. Ours worked...kind of. The horn mechanism in the wheel had died once upon a time so an ingenious person replaced it with a doorbell ringer to the right of the steering wheel and somehow rigged it to the horn itself. When asked if we should return the jeep with a full gas tank, our dealer poked her head in the car and said, "Well, it's on empty now, so return it on empty." She was only willing to part with one temporary driver's license and sent us off to the police station to pertain the other two. I truly wish I could of taken pictures at the police station. One does not want to spend the night in a Grenadian jail. On the wall was a poster that read, "Dear Detained People, aka, Prisoners." In the back on a large piece of scrap wood, written in black felt marker was the following motto, "Be your day glorious or grueling, God is watching."
Three handwritten pieces of paper later we were licensed to drive. Matt started us off with white knuckles and a few high pitched squeals reminiscent of a four year old girl. I sat shotgun and continuously did the driver's ed teacher, brake tap. I think I almost tapped a hole in the floor of our rental jeep. I can not convey enough how frightening driving is here. To start with you drive on the left. Everything in the car is reversed, including the blinker and wipers, which of course made for laughter at every turn. There are few traffic laws, and signs of any kind are almost non-existent. In fact there are basically no street signs. Deep gutters for drainage flank the roads, while cows, chickens, goats, dogs and children add to the road hazards. Everything in Grenada is done slowly except driving. When you enter a vehicle you are instantly a part of the Grenadian 500 (even if you drive a giant dump truck). Lucky for us it was a holy day in a very holy country, so traffic was light. Armed with a map with directions in terms of buildings and foliage as landmarks, we somehow made it to our destination 1.5 hours later.
Levera Beach is almost devoid of humanity and is truly a tropical haven with a dash of palm trees and spectacular sunsets. We arrived just in time to watch the sun go down, and with it the Leatherback Sea Turtles arrived. Leatherbacks are a critically endangered species that look like they fell out of the Cretaceous Period (and they did). Ancient and focused they lumber onto shore once the sun sets to lay their eggs. Watching something nest that could very well be 100+ years old and averages 700+ lbs, is a humbling and extremely grungy experience. A female first spins in a counterclockwise or clockwise motion, heaving large amounts of loose sand away with her powerful flippers. I was hit several times by these turtle sandstorms. It was as if someone had taken a snowshovel full of sand and forcefully flung it at me. When the turtle hit moist sand she begins to dig. Straight down she carves a hole as deep as her flippers can reach (which is three feet for most girls). The dexterity of their flippers is amazing. First one flipper lowers into the hole and carefully scrapes the sand away, cups it, and then moves it out. Then the other flipper lowers. They then start to lay around 100 cue ball sized, white eggs (we counted every one). Around 40 yolkless eggs follow that range from golf ball size to marble size, which help with heat distribution and predator aversion. We got to know eight females, and spent the better part of the night underneath the tail-end of the turtles counting eggs and moving nests that were in poor locations. We also measured the turtles, read their tags (they were all tagged) and told them what good moms they were. We shared the beach with one other small team and took turns walking the 1/4 mile strip of beach every couple of hours. In between shifts, the three of us napped by an abandoned rowboat, sharing one small picnic blanket and an even smaller twin sized blanket. Micah managed to steal the top blanket a few minutes into each nap. The sun rose around 5:00 am and with it, the last of our mothers departed. We raked away their tracks to protect the nests from poachers. Tired, bug bitten, sand ground and elated we trudged back to the car. It was now my turn to drive. In my defense I had now been awake for 26 hours straight. We returned to campus with no deaths, crashes and only one near miss. The boys gave me grief for coming close to tearing off the side of the jeep, but as my lab partner put it, if you didn't lose a mirror, you weren't "close" at all.
Although my back and mind are tired from the fishing and turtle excursions I do not regret the trips were the weekend before finals. Spending an entire night on a beach with blazing stars, two of my closest friends, and century old turtles, reminded me that life is suppose to be an adventure. It should not be lived cautiously...finals or no finals (not that I don't plan on kicking some final behind). And now I only have 10 days remaining on the island, and the first of five finals is tagged with an A and in the bag. I'm so happy to be on my way home to see all of you and hear about the adventures you've had. Soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment