Visitors!

About two weeks ago now I got a text message from my mom…

Pamcakes: Or would Friday be better?

Me: What do you mean?

Pamcakes: How could I make it any clearer?

Hmm… Maybe you could explain what was going on?! So I called my mother and it turned out that she had sent me a previous text that I had not received about her coming down to see me that night. I was beyond excited. Sometimes living in the Keys can feel very cutoff from the rest of the world, and I really miss my family, so it’s nice to see people from the real world/mainland.

Hayley and Pamcakes came down last Sunday night and spent the whole day with me on Sunday in Marathon. First we ate at IHOP. Delicious! I hadn’t eaten there since Tan came down for Easter. After that we went to the Turtle Hospital.

We learned about sea turtles, some things I knew before, and some things I didn’t. For example I knew that all seven species of sea turtles in the world are endangered. I did not know that green sea turtles are actually named for their body fat which has a distinct green hue because of all the sea grass they eat.  The best part was that we got to see lots of cute little turtles there, including Scooter.

Scooter is three years old and adorable. He’s a loggerhead sea turtle. I watched him swim around for awhile, but we weren’t allowed to touch any of the sea turtles which is no fun at all.

This guy, Izzy, got hit by a boat propeller. He’s a green sea turtle.

This was Mom’s favorite sea turtle, Corona. I know you think it’s her favorite because of how much she loves to drink beer, but actually she just loved his beautiful shell.

If you ever come down to Marathon, you should definitely check out the Turtle Hospital. The tour is about an hour and a half and it doesn’t seem that long. It’s definitely worth the fee.

We also went to Sombrero Beach for awhile. It’s one of the few sandy beaches in the Florida Keys. It’s gorgeous there. We laid around and read books. Hayley tried to get the tan that she lost when she left summer camp (It didn’t work).

Then we went to Sunset Grille with Milledge. The food was delicious, and we made it in time for sunset which was nice. It was sad to see Mom and Hayley leave, but we had a great time. Now I’m even more excited to see most of the family at Thanksgiving, which is coming up soon.  Happy November!

Best Day Ever?

About a week and a half ago, I had a high school group come in. It was one of the best teaching groups of my time here. There were only seven students and one chaperone, and they were all really smart kids. The school also requested four boat trips for their three day trip. The weather was absolutely perfect while they were here so we got to go out to Looe Key for two of the boat trips. I have never seen the water that clear at Looe. It was gorgeous. The students were from Indiana and immediately fell in love with the reef. One of the girls actually said, "I used to look forward to my wedding day and having kids, but now I don't. I know today was the best day of my life."

The first thing I saw when I got in the water was this midnight blue parrotfish. He was just chillin' there while the little yellow fish in the picture were cleaning him.

Here's a damselfish feeding on some Halimeda algae.

I love these things. They're called Christmas tree worms. You can see how the brown worms look like little trees. They come in different colors, but when you touch them or create a current next to them, they suck back into their little worm homes.

As always, there were lots of yellow tail snappers hanging out by the boat. This picture was from the second day we were out. Right after I got back on the boat, a small Goliath grouper moved under the boat and hung out there for awhile. He looked to be about 100 pounds when I saw him swimming away from the students when they were getting out of the water.

We also saw a four and a half foot reef shark the second day, but I couldn't get a picture of him.

The second morning, before we went to Looe, we went to the coral heads that are much closer to shore. It wasn't as clear there, but hopefully you can tell what you're seeing in this next picture.

It's the lionfish that I can't catch. You can see his light, striped fins sticking out, and he's closer to the bottom than the center. This is the second time I've tried to get him from the same exact spot. He hids in a cave made from the coral next to a long spined sea urchin (bottom right corner of picture). He's always too far back for my short arms though. He loves to hang out and taunt me. Next time, I will catch him.

Tagging

The schools have finally started coming back to camp. This is amazing for me, because I've been getting really bored at work since I'm not teaching. I've only had one school group so far. They were fifty seventh graders, split up into five groups. It's a nice change-up also, because we teach differently than we do in the summer since they're only here for 3 days.

This group got an extra special treat. We had just caught 2 nurse sharks the day before, so we tagged the sharks while the students were watching. I've tagged sharks before, but this time someone took pictures for your viewing pleasure.

After Stephan (who is pictured helping me in all of these pictures) scoops the lovely pretty shark out of the holding tank, we have to measure it and check to make sure it looks healthy. We look for obvious signs like scarring or parasites and for more subtle signs about the sharks health.

After looking on the dorsal side, we flip her over to check for these signs on her ventral side. Also, I open her mouth (with a tool, not my hands!) and check to be sure her mouth looks good. She seems very healthy and has plenty of rows of teeth.

When all of this has been recorded, I begin to actually tag the shark. I start by making a very small incision next to her primary dorsal fin. Sharks heal so quickly that there will be no visible sign of the cut after only one week.

Next, I insert the tag.

In this picture, you can see the actual tag a bit better. It's small and yellow. Not large enough to interfere with the sharks swimming or hunting, but obvious enough that if the shark is captured, the fisherman will notice the tag and be able to contact the number/address on the tag with the information requested as well as the shark's whereabouts.

When all of this is finished, the shark is weighed and released. I know what you've all been thinking, isn't this a long time for the shark to be out of the water? No, she would be fine out of the water this whole time, but still we pour plenty of salt water on her. Also, you may have noticed that she's covered up quite a bit in some photos. Covering their eyes helps to calm them down and proves to be much less stressful on the animal.

Dry Tortugas! Again!

Now that the summer season has ended for work, we're in the middle of another Work Week. This means lots of maintenance. It's not very exciting at all. I've been scrubbing the dining hall and taking inventory of the health center. Not too fun. Also, the end of another season means that more people are leaving. There aren't as many people that I'm upset about this time though. Summer is too busy of a season to really get close to anyone new.

One of the people that is abandoning me is Ana. She's been here since January and we worked quite a bit of the summer together. Luckily we got to spend her last day off together. Brynn, Ana and I went to the Dry Tortugas on Sunday. Haven't I been there already, you might be wondering. Yes, I have. It's so gorgeous though, that I needed to go back!

Even waking up at 5:00 am is worth it. Here's Brynn on our way out.

One of the crew members called her Brandy all day. Then I had that song stuck in my head the rest of the time. You know, Brandy, you're a fine girl. Such a good wife you would be. But my life, my love, and my lady is the sea!

Ana had never been to the Dry Tortugas, so she and I went to explore the fort.

 

It was just as cool as it was last time. It's really creepy to think about all the people who have died in there from yellow fever though. I'm sure it's haunted. Plus there's an island right next to it where they used to bury all the dead bodies.

After that, we snorkeled around for a little bit, but it wasn't very clear on the side of the island we went to first. We did see this awesome juvenile Cushion Star though. AKA the Bahama Sea Star. Don't take it out of the water, it's protected! 

After that we went and had some lunch and decided to check out the other side of the island. Right when we were about to go though, a rain storm hit. Brynn thought we should still snorkel, but I thought the wind would demolish us in the waves. Ana agreed, so we all waited it out in the water right in front of the beach.

Obviously, there was no lightning or I wouldn't have been anywhere near the water. Once the storm passed, we went snorkeling and the water was much clearer. I'm still working on figuring out this new camera though, so the pictures aren't amazing. These are just a couple of the fish we saw:

That guy was the biggest hogfish I've ever seen. He was about 2 feet long. I followed him around and almost ran into this other huge fish:

The biggest permit of my life. It was almost 3 feet to the fork. Beautiful!! He seriously, just swam around right by us and let me get really close to him for awhile.

We saw lots of other fish, including a scorpion fish, blue runners and some small mackerals. It was one of the best days of the summer by far. When we got back, we tried to blow conch shells near the dock. I am absolutely terrible at it, but Brynn did great and Ana at least figured it out. All in all, it was an incredible trip.

Epic Life Moments

Harry Potter has finally come to a close. What will I do with my life now?! Oh, that's right. I'll just read all the books again. Repeatedly.

The movie was amazing. I obviously cried through at least half the movie. Everyone dying is just so depressing, but that's also what makes it such a good series. I mean, if it was all happy all the time like Twilight everyone would have forgotten about Harry by now. I also liked that it was shorter than the rest and they didn't drag it out just to make it a long movie. The "19 Years Later" part was stupid, but I expected that. It was just unnecessary. Plus, they did nothing to make Ginny and Hermoine look different besides change their hair. Even including this part, I feel the movie was a success.

I've moved from residential camp to the day camp that is Monday to Friday 9-5. This makes my schedule much more predictable which I already love. My biffle, Nicole Morgan, came to see me yesterday. One of the first things she said was "You weren't kidding about the no a/c." (In case anyone else was skeptical about my claims, there is definitely no a/c in the dorms. It's hot, and not in a good way.) Nicole and I went to the movies, watched the sunset and had dinner with Jennette! Jennette was down for a bachelorette party, but she snuck away to see us for a couple hours. We had a lot of fun, and if you're friends with Nicole, I'm sure you'll see pictures soon on facebook.

Thanks to Tanya and my mother, I'm now addicted to a new website: Pinterest. I don't have as much time to browse it as I would like, but you should definitely check it out. It's a great concept for a website and apparently it's the new thing. In fact, I'm sure all of you already use it, and I'm just unaware because I'm on Island Time.

Almost two weeks ago now, the coolest/scariest thing happened to me. I was supposed to be collecting algae with my class for the algae lab we were going to do the next day, but it was taking too long. We moved to a spot where I was sure I would find algae, and I got in by myself to collect while the students were on the boat with the assistant. The visibility was awful so I couldn't see much, but I kept hearing this weird, high pitched noise. I hadn't heard it before in the water, so I wasn't sure what it was and continued snorkeling around. All of a sudden I hear the students screaming my name. Of course I immediately come to the surface to see what's wrong. They all started yelling at once and pointing about 10 feet away from me. This whole time I'm moving toward the ladder because I don't know what is out there. Right when I got to the ladder, I saw a dolphin surface 5 feet away from me, swimming right toward me. It swam directly under me! Then another surfaced about 7 feet in front of me and kept swimming forward. It was totally creepy and awesome all at once. In case you don't know, dolphins are wild animals. You can't just jump in and swim with them in the ocean. Actually it's illegal, but these dolphins were swimming with me; not the other way around. I even wrote a speech in college titled Dolphins: Friend or Foe, so I know all about how sketchy these much loved mammals can be. Dolphins swimming with me in the wild though was completely epic. I will never forget it.

Poseidon Hates Me

Let me just say that I have been soooo excited all day. I saw THREE squid swimming in the ocean today. I have only ever seen two before, and I saw those while I was snorkeling at Looe last week. This morning I saw a 12 inch squid swimming, but it swam away very quickly when I started calling for the campers to come look at it. Then about 5 minutes later I saw two hovering above a gorgonian (a soft coral for those of you who are non-scientists). They just stayed there while I got all 8 of the kids in my class to swim over and look at them. It was amazing.

Clearly, I was having a fantastic day. I decided to google the squid so I could put a picture of one on here for you. When I typed in "squid in South Florida," this is what came up: Giant squid found in Stuart

SERIOUSLY?!?! I leave Stuart, and they find a giant squid there?! I am livid. I can't even believe that this has happened. Why was I not there to see it? This is nonsense, Stuart. You should love me enough to wait until I'm home to find sea monsters so I can see them for myself!

I'm reminded of the time I left the beach early and a seal came up on Stuart Beach an hour later. I mean, what's next? The Megaladon will probably swim up the river and prove it's alive while I'm all excited to be snorkeling with a nurse shark in the Keys. It's like Poseidon is trying to play some cruel trick on me.

Needless to say, I'm buying a camera right now so that I don't have to google anymore pictures for you guys.




15 days til Harry Potter 7 Part 2!!!
31 days til Nicole's wedding!!!

Training Injuries

I always seem to hurt myself at camp, especially during training. I find bruises that I didn't realize I'd gotten and random scratches all over my legs. It's not really a good look for me, but there's not much I can do about it.

Yesterday, we were learning how to sail on some miniature sailboats. They only hold two people. Before we could practice actually sailing, we had to do a capsize drill. Basically, two people sit inside the sailboat, flip it onto its side, and then right the sailboat and get back in. It sounds pretty straight forward, because it is. Kerri and I were in our own group. When we were righting it the second time, I was in the boat first and was helping pull carry up when someone yelled, "Jenna, your leg is bleeding!" I look down and there's blood all over my upper right leg. I wiped it off, and couldn't see the cut. I couldn't feel anything, so I looked over to see if Kerri was bleeding. She seemed fine, so I looked down again and saw even more blood. Obviously, water makes it look like there's way more blood than there is. My leg has two cuts side by side about three to four inches long. It's not deep at all, but I'm sure it was from a barnacle, so I cleaned out really well. Now it just looks like this:

This morning, 12 of us had to remove Cassiopeia from the swim canal. Cassiopeia is the genus name of the upside down jellyfish that live in the shallows around here. They were named after a queen in Greek mythology. Cassiopeia was very beautiful and thought that she was more gorgeous than the sea nymphs. This really pissed off the nymphs, so they complained to Poseidon. He kept destroying the ships from her main city after that, and the oracle said Cassiopeia's daughter had to be sacrificed to a monster for the ships to be safe. Perseus, Zeus's mortal son, saved the daughter. As punishment to Cassiopeia, when she died Poseidon placed her in the stars on an upside down thrown. You've probably heard of the constellation. It's refered to in the horrible movie Serendipity with John Cusack. Lame.

Anyways, these jellies are mainly benthic. They live on the bottom, upside down and look like plants. They don't move a lot, but if you disturb them, they can release their stinging cells into the water column. An example of what happens is that one person swims down, and accidentally kicks a Cassiopeia. Then their buddy and everyone around them starts to get really itchy from the stinging cells that are all over the water. It sucks. Plus, some people are way more sensitive than others. We all put on wet suits for this fun project, but I had to borrow one since I don't own my own. I grabbed one that was a little too big, so it didn't block out enough water, and I got stung all down my chest, stomach and back. My neck got the worst of it. I had horrible, red welts all over, but now I just have red spots all over my neck and chest. The picture doesn't show them very well, but I thought you might be able to get an idea.

My neck still stings, but I didn't even stay in the water as long as other people. We ended up getting an estimated 2,000 jellies out of the swim canal. It was insane. We had to transport them to other areas by boat so they wouldn't die. I now hate Cassiopeia.

(These pictures are mainly for you, Mom. I know how you love to take pictures when people get hurt.)

Snorkeling

People frequently ask me what I do on my days off. "You must get sick of doing stuff in the water," they'll say. False. Maybe during the winter I need some extra motivation to get in the cold ocean on my days off. Maybe sometimes my body needs to recover from being outside in the blazing sun for 10 hours every day. I always love being in the ocean though, and so Thursday on our day off, Leigh, Kerri, Christine and I went to Looe Key. Looe Key is a barrier reef right off of Big Pine Key.

At first we had a little bit of trouble getting the boat ready to go. Here's Leigh paddling us through the harbor when the boat stopped working...

But then things were fixed, and we decided to continue our journey to Looe and hope for the best.

We made it out to the Reef easily after that. We basically jumped in the water immediately once we moored up. We saw some gorgeous and big angel fish. (I'm really bad at taking underwater pictures though. And thanks to Liz for letting us use her camera!)

I think that might have been Cheerio coral in the bottom right hand corner. I just found out that it's not actually a coral. It's a colonial anemone!! Isn't science fun? We saw so much other stuff too. There were schools of yellowtail snappers.

 And several barracuda. This one was just a little guy that was probably about 2 feet.

That's me in my $11 bathing suit... What a steal!

And here's Leigh on her last snorkeling trip to Looe before she leaves me on Sunday after her last day of work.

I'm not sure what I'll do without her. The spring staff that isn't staying for summer camp is leaving Sunday and Monday. It's going to be quite the depressing week around here for me. I'm going to miss most of them quite a lot. If I call you crying soon, don't be too scared. First of all, I'm sick so my nose is stuffy and it sounds like I'm crying pretty much all of the time. Second, nothing is extremely wrong, I'm probably just upset about having to say goodbye to so many people. It's weird living at the place you work because you get much closer to all your co-workers than you ever thought you would be. I'll miss you, Leigh!!!!

The Lionfish Sleeps Tonight

I caught and killed my first lionfish on Thursday!!! He was just hanging out in a hard bottom area with his spines out not moving. It was very easy to catch, but that's completely beside the point.

Catching a lionfish is important for a couple reasons, but one of the campers put it best when someone asked him what he saw on the boat and he said, "We saved the reef today." Ok, so we didn't really save the whole reef by just catching one, but it's still important to kill them because they are an invasive exotic and shouldn't be in the Atlantic. They are basically destroying our reef ecosystems because they have no natural predators over here. For example, they grow to 8 inches in the Pacific and up to 20 inches in the Bahamas where they are spreading out of control. In case you are confused as to what a lionfish is, here is a picture:

If you want more information on the lionfish invasion you can check out the REEF website, which is where I got this beautiful picture.

Plus, there is a competition to see who of the instructors can capture the most lionfish by the end of the season (next week). I know I'm not going to win because Nick has caught a myriad of lionfish, but at least I won't have a zero when they tally the numbers. Plus, I'm saving the reef.

Remembering the Alamo

I was snorkeling the other day and found a stone crab. I've caught them before with nets and I've picked them up just fine. However this particular crab I found was pretty sneaky and decided to go into a hole in the ground. It was hard to see him in there, and I couldn't get him out with the little net I had. I figured if I grabbed one of the claws I could pull the crab out without him pinching me. I was correct... Almost. I put my hand in there and grabbed his claw and I practically had him out, when he pinched my pointer finger. Sadly, I panicked and let go of the crab. My finger felt bruised for a couple days, and was just a little scraped up. After all of this happened and I was complaining about how I lost the crab, I was told that I was a typical "South Florida kid" and that I should never do anything that stupid again. Psh.

Since that happened, I feel like crabs have been out to get me. The ones I catch are now trying to attack me whenever I pick them up, instead of being semi-calm like they usually are. For example, tonight during a Nocturnal Adaptations class, I caught a big clinging crab and it would not let go of the net forever. Then about 5 minutes later, I caught a blue crab with my hands and it would not stop rapidly moving it's swimmerettes, trying to get away from me while I was holding it.

Also tonight during Nocturnal Adaptations, one of the other instructors found a live cowry. You've probably seen a lot of these shells being sold with names engraved on them, but not a lot of people have seen the living animal:

The cowry isn't like a normal snail that just hides in its shell until it wants to move and then brings it's body out. This animal actually wraps part of its body around the shell, so that you can't even see the shell anymore. In this picture, it looks extra slimy, because it's completely covered its shell.

April 30 was a very sad night in Key West.

El Alamo bar closed its doors for the last time. The Alamo is a really cool bar in Key West that is down an alley way off of Duval Street. It's mainly a bar for locals because of how it's tucked away and how cheap everything is. One dollar Pabst Blue Ribbons, anyone?

The bar is all open and has this huge tree in the middle of the patio. There's almost always a band playing, and you can play corn hole, beer pong, and pool anytime you want. It's just generally a great place to hang out, which is why I'm so upset that it's closing. We'll never forget you, El Alamo.

More Pictures!

I'm finally catching up on everything, so here's some pictures from my birthday. I know the cupcakes are the only thing you are really concerned about...

Here's Jack eating a cupcake. Clearly, he loved them.

Aren't they so pretty?! You can kind of tell near the bottom of this picture how they sparkled. This just doesn't do them justice though. They shimmered all over, but in a pretty, non-obnoxious way.

Here's a picture of me on the phone with Grandma. I miss you, Grandma!  

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend. Tanya came down to see me, which was awesome. I wish I could go home and see everyone more often, so it's great to have visitors. We spent Saturday hanging out in Key West and Tan found some tea shop that she really liked. We also went to the Toy Factory which was amazing!! It's not that they necessarily have the widest selection of toys or anything, but it's decorated in a really cool underwater theme with ginormous fish and a pirate ship. If you come down to Key West ever, you should check it out. We also ate at this delicious Mexican restaurant called Salsa Loco. It was a relaxing weekend filled with some sisterly bonding, which was exactly what I needed.

Oh, and just in case you live in a cave, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I just came out on DVD last week. Go buy it if you haven't already!

Dry Tortugas

Remember like 2 months ago when I mentioned in passing that I went to the Dry Tortugas? Well, I finally am putting pictures up from it! 

Basically the Tortugas are a small cluster of islands 70 miles directly west of Key West. They were named for the turtles (Tortugas is spanish for turtle) that used to mate all along them and for their lack of fresh water.

The islands are right in the middle of the natural channel that all large sea vessels have to take if they want to leave the Gulf of Mexico for the Atlantic Ocean. In the 1800's, the United States decided it was necessary to have protection there and so they built Fort Jefferson.

During the Civil War the Union kept it from the Confederacy and used it as a prison for Confederate soldiers. One of the inmates was actually Dr. Mudd, the doctor that set John Wilkes Booth's leg when he broke it after shooting Lincoln, even though the doctor claimed to have no knowledge of what his patient had done. He was eventually released after he had to treat many of the soldiers and inmates during an outbreak of yellow fever.

I can't even imagine how many of the soldiers ended up getting heat stroke from those uniforms they had to wear all the time. But the Dry Tortugas is definitely one the most beautiful places I've ever been.

ABC

Nothing too exciting has been happening down here in the Keys, but I do have a couple of recommended readings for everyone...

• One for the Money. Janet Evonavich's Stephanie Plum novels are hands down the best bounty hunter books I've ever read. Are they the only bounty hunter books I've read? Possibly, but they are still amazing. I've only read the first five books so far, but I've loved all of them.
• Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough by Lori Gottlieb.  If you are a single woman, you need to read this book. It's a nonfiction that talks about everything that no one wants to hear, but still makes you feel better after you read it.

Right now I'm reading Hilary Duff's book, Elixir. It's definitely cheesy, but I'm starting to get into the story, so hopefully Hilary will pull through with a solid ending.

Maybe I'll be able to start up the Awesome Book Club again soon. I know everyone is probably missing our monthly discussions as much as I am. Plus it's on my resume and at some point I'm going to need to get another job. Which reminds me that I also recommend reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's way better than Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Fishing

It's been awhile...

My vacation went really well. Tanya and I went up to visit Tiffany and her new baby Lillian Mabel in Georgia. She is so precious, and Lillian is pretty cute too! The good news is that Lilli and I already have a lot in common:




My birthday was a few days ago and I had a great time! I had to work that day so I missed everyone's phone calls, but I appreciated them all the same. My school group all sang to me in the morning, and then at lunch one of the instructors presented me with a tiara and a wand and told everyone they had to stop me and say "Happy birthday." After work, a bunch of us went to Milledge's for homemade chicken and dumplins and cupcakes. The chicken and dumplins were absolutely amazing. The cupcakes were gorgeous. The literally sparkled. Plus they had vanilla icing on the inside. I'll have to post pictures of them soon, but I forgot my camera cord today... Sorry!

On Monday, I had the afternoon off, so I went with Jack and Liz on her row boat, The White Whale. First, someone had borrowed Liz's boat and messed up the oars, so we couldn't row properly. It was really windy and we were basically drifting off to sea. We stopped to fix the oars, but when we dropped anchor, they hadn't attached the anchor properly and it fell off, lost forever in the channel. We had to go back in to get a new anchor, and finally ended up going fishing about 500 feet away.
 Jack ended up catching a small nurse shark:

Then yesterday Liz and I went on Milledge's boat with him. Look at all the fish we caught!!

OH, Did you not see any fish?? That's because we didn't catch any. But at least we didn't have any problems with our anchor.