Blog #5 Day 5

Tuesday March 17, 2009

Staying at the refuge last night was quite the adventure! At first Katie and I couldn’t find a light that worked so I suppose it was a good thing that I had a flashlight packed in my bad (THANK YOU MOM!!!!). We managed to find some light bulbs so that we could replace the burned out ones and we managed to get some sleep. It rained so hard that I was woken up several times in the night, but it was ok. Katie and I woke up this morning at 730 and got ready for the day and headed over to see Buzz, Phil and Jonathon. Jonathon yelling my name, and quickly running and jumping into my arms greeted me at the cottages. It was a great way to start the day. I quickly began making myself breakfast which consisted of crispy bacon, toast, and home fries from last nights dinner mixed in with my scrambled eggs with cheese. It was quite the hearty breakfast!
After breakfast I managed to get some snorkeling in right before we headed off to get our mongoose. We left at 10 am as opposed to 1 pm because our plans have changed slightly so that we can all go on a half day cruise to Buck Island on Friday. We went to the refuge and caught several mongooses. Today, Jonathon bet that we would catch 3, Buzz guessed 4, Katie guessed 5, Phil guessed 6 and I apparently being the optimistic one said 7 or more. Phil was the winner with us catching 6 mongooses, which is a good number considering the traps were out a few hours shorter than usual.
After we brought the mongoose back here, we all ate some lunch and did our usual data collection. After we finished the collection, I decided to go sunbathing for a while to get some sun. I needed to cover up this pasty white skin and boy did I! I should hopefully have quite the tan when I return back to Western MA!
While I was sunbathing I was scared to death by Jonathon when he yelled a big “BOO!” Jonathon laughed at my frightened expense. Buzz was right behind him grinning and called me a “sun worshiper.” Haha I thought that was pretty comical. Anyway he asked me to watch Jonathon while him and Katie went to release the mongoose and go to the wildlife headquarters to use a microscope to look at the fecal samples and see if they could see any worm parasites. This meant some free time for Jonathon and I to build a sandcastle! I began by making a large pile of sand that was almost as big as Jonathon. We then began decorating it and I made a spiraling staircase that began on the top and went all the way around the castle to the bottom. It came out pretty good. Well we worked on it for about 30-45 minutes and then the 6 year old attention span kicked in and thank goodness it did because I was getting exhausted! Jonathon told me that the castle looked good and asked if he could go swimming with Charlie. I told him that that would be fine while I laid down to catch some more rays. After a pina colada and some sun I realized that I was getting quite tan. I went out on the kayak for a bit and then came back in to go swimming with Jonathon and Charlie.
At about 4 pm Buzz and Katie came back. Katie was quite frustrated because she was unable to get a good look at any parasites because of the quality of the microscope that the headquarters had to offer. I told her to get her bathing suite on and her, Buzz and me are going snorkeling.
They both changed and we went off into the ocean. Buzz took Katie and I to spots that we hadn’t been to yet. We saw a rockfish, a trumpet fish, and some tubeworms. (I got pictures of all of them!). We also saw another Moray eel. It was an awesome color. I got a great picture of it with Katie’s camera. Buzz left snorkeling after a little while to go swimming with Jonathon. Katie and continued even though both of our batteries were running low in our cameras. This is when we saw the sea turtle! It was unbelievable. Be cause Katie’s battery in her camera was completely burned out I got plenty of pictures and video footage!
After all of this excitement, Katie and I went back to the cottage and relaxed for a little while. I showed everyone my turtle videos. Then Carmen came into our apartment with a sour sop fruit, which is a big green slightly spiky, fruit that when cut open is a very white gelatinous fruit. She taught me how to make a really good rum drink with it. I peeled it, removed the seeds and put it in the blender. A little milk, sugar and plenty of rum were added to this sweet white fruit and I had concocted a quite tasty mixed drink that buzz, Phil, and me shared (Katie didn’t want any). Oh yeah and by the way Carmen is one of the attendants that cleans the rooms here at the cottages. A big bird was eating this big fruit and Carmen went over and took it from it! It was hysterical! She told me to just cut the part out of the fruit that the bird was eating and make this drink. It was very thick, had a weird consistency, but was delicious. Carmen was quite the sweetheart to give this to me and teach me that recipe.
Katie made dinner tonight that consisted of spaghetti and chicken patties. It was really good. After dinner Buzz taught me how to post videos and those are the two that I posted not too long ago.
Well, Im at the refuge right now and I cannot quite figure out how to get the internet to work so I will have to post this tomorrow morning when I get to the cottages. Tomorrow will be another great day I hope! I will put some more videos on the blog when I get a chance tomorrow!!!