Sea Eggs and Foreign Invaders!

Hola from San Salvador! After taking a car, to a train, to a jet, to a van, to a bus, to a little bitty plane, to the back of a flatbed truck I finally arrived in San Salvador, Bahamas! I was worried about riding in a little 7 passenger plane, but it really wasn’t bad at all…Actually, I loved it! I enjoyed being low enough to see the water clearly and flying right through the fluffy clouds where I saw rainbow after rainbow. Anyway, we’re staying at the Gerace Research Center (pronounced “Jer-ace”), which used to be an old naval station set up to track Soviet activities during the Cold War. You can tell it’s an old military post, too. The buildings are all plain, white, cinderblock-stacked rectangles, which are very functional and practical. But the best part about the center (besides the window air conditioner that they installed the second day I was here—Hallelujah!) is that it is just steps from the most beautiful aqua blue water I have ever seen. Actually, I’ve spent the better part of the past three days inside that water. I’ve already snorkeled five different reefs and went SCUBA diving on two other reefs—one of which was named “Lindsay Reef.” :) I wish I could have posted sooner, but they’ve kept us really busy—I had to wake up early just to type this out. I could write a page about each one of my snorkeling/SCUBA trips, but I’ll give you the shortened version.

DAY ONE: SCUBA across from the San Salvador High School
I hadn’t been diving in over 8 years, so this first trip I stayed with the instructor who helped me practice clearing my mask and doing all the safety things you have to do. Didn’t really see much, but I made a complete fool out of myself trying to get my fins on. Another lady who was also somewhat inexperienced told me to put them on in about knee deep water (mistake). We ended up losing our balance and flailing about like a turtle on its back since we had the heavy tanks strapped to us. We then went back and snorkeled with the rest of the group at the pier, where I’ve never seen so many conch shells. They harvest them at the end of the pier then throw the empty shells in a pile at the end. I picked up the one I thought was the prettiest to bring back.

DAY TWO: North point and Lindsay Reef
In the morning we snorkeled out along the sea grass beds all the way up to north point collecting small specimen for a temporary aquarium we’d set up in our lab. I saw a sea turtle for a split second :) and walked on a beach with pink sand—well, pinkish sand from dead conch shells. Pretty cool! I got a little bit of sunburn on my back from all that snorkeling, though. The water tricks you into thinking you don’t need sunscreen. Ug. I had much more success on SCUBA diving Lindsay Reef this day (no flailing), and I picked up a cool looking piece of dead coral from the bottom of the ocean.

DAY THREE: Telephone Pole Reef and Snapshot Reef
These two reefs were very similar and both stunningly beautiful. I wore a long sleeve shirt and shorts to snorkel today to avoid the same mistake I made in day two. The most interesting thing I saw at these two reefs was by far the HUGE lionfish at Snapshot. I saw the SCUBA divers all motioning to one another to come over and see something that was hiding inside one of the big sections of the reef. I asked one of them what they were looking at and she spelled out L-I-O-N with her hands. I waited above a hole in the reef until I saw it. I’ve heard ocean water makes things look 20% bigger than they actually are, but this thing looked like it had to be a foot and a half long.

This is especially concerning since lionfish aren’t even supposed to be anywhere near the Atlantic Ocean. They’re native to Indonesia and a very popular item in people’s fish tanks. They’ve somehow been released into Atlantic waters, and now they’ve been sighted all up and down the east cost of the US. They have strong stinging bars on their backs and sides, so nothing eats them and they eat everything else. They’re beautiful, but they’re like the kudzu of the seas now. I heard a speech last summer about a dive group that spears them on sight to try and save the native Caribbean fish populations. On the way back in from Snapshot I found a really neat sea urchin shell. They are so fragile that I decided to carry it instead of putting it in my bag. When we stopped in town at the Straw Market, a lady stopped me and said “Sea Egg.” When I looked puzzled she explained that the locals call sea urchin shells sea eggs and to be careful because the live ones “could stick you.” I thought that was pretty neat.

TODAY we’re going out to the old Lighthouse on the north end of the island, snorkeling across from the high school again, and going back to Lindsay, Snapshot, or Telephone Pole Reef. I’ll try to be better about posting more often so that my posts don’t have to be so long. I wish I could post some pictures, but we don’t have a strong internet connection here and it couldn’t handle uploading that much data (check back on Wednesday June 30th for pics).