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.

A Hard Days Night

This week has been super busy for me. Kelly and Craig's wedding was last weekend. It was absolutely amazing, and Kelly looked gorgeous. I had a great time. Then I had to come back to Big Pine Sunday night for work.

Tuesday I went SCUBA diving on Looe Key. The visibility certainly could have been better, but it was a great experience for my first time diving in the ocean. We saw a couple nurse sharks, lots of barracudas, yellowtails, more parrot fish than I have ever seen in my life combined, and lots of other fish including about 5 lionfish (those bitches).

The school I worked with this week arrived on Wednesday. Friday we went on two boat trips. I wish I had realized how these boat trips were going to turn out for me. The boats we teach on are kind of like pontoon boats except they have three hulls. The deck is white and flat and we actually write directly on the deck with sidewalk chalk when teaching. Friday morning we go out and I'm drawing body plans of sponges on the deck when I run out of room. I had a bucket with a rope on it so i could drop the bucket off the bow of the boat and pull it up with the string. I walk over to the edge drop the bucket in, and then slip on water and completely fall on my ass which somehow propels me even closer to the edge of the boat until my legs are dangling over the edge with my feet in the water and I'm grabbing on to a side railing for dear life. Oh, and did I mention that I was being observed by one of my bosses so they could critique my teaching skills?

Later that afternoon, we go out on another boat trip. I thought that this boat trip had to go better than the morning one. I was wrong. We stopped at a shallow shoal to snorkel and collect algae. I got in so I could snorkel with them and show them the types of things we were looking for and identify critters (we saw some horse conchs and tulip snails and a whole mess of sea urchins). I get on all my gear and I get in off the front of the bow and BAM! My right knee hits the bottom. Only it doesn't actually hit the bottom, it slams into a variegated sea urchin (these are not poisonous).

                                                              This picture is from South Florida's Reefs website

My knee is still all cut up and seems to be looking worse than it did that day. Obviously, I think, this day could not get worse. WRONG! About 10 minutes later, I pick up a sea urchin and accidentally grab onto the bearded fire worm that was hiding under it.

                                                           This picture is from South Florida's Reefs website too.

Yes, these are poisonous. However, I didn't feel anything so I continue swimming around relieved that I must not have grabbed like I thought. Then, we all get back on the boat and my finger starts to sting. Then it starts to feel like it's on fire. When we got back I sprayed some vinegar on it, and it only stung for a couple hours after that. All in all it was a pretty horrible day for my body.

My week did end on a positive note thanks to the Beatles. Saturday night a bunch of us went out to Boondocks to watch a cover band of the the Beatles. They were pretty much awesome and I had a lot of fun. In case any of you don't know, I am obsessed with the Beatles. I love them. And now today is starting my week vacation. Tanya and I are heading to Georgia to visit Tiffany and her new baby Lillian later tonight. I'm so excited!!

She Works Hard For Her Money

On days that I have to work, but school's aren't here and we aren't doing training, I have to do maintenance. This could be anything from cleaning boat bottoms to picking weeds or painting bunk beds. For example, I have become a professional floor stripper and waxer. Anyways, this week we have had kids at camp, but I couldn't teach because all the schools overlap with the wedding I'm going to this weekend. (Yay for Kelly and Craig!) Since I've been on maintenance by myself these past two days, I've been given odd tasks around property to do.

Yesterday, I had to rearrange the wall of the shark pond.

Part of the wall is made up of cinderblocks and rocks. The blocks are removed when it's time for the sharks to leave so that they can swim out on their own. I had to readjust the blocks and the rocks so the water could flow more easily in and out of the shark pond.

This only took about 20 minutes, so afterwards I was told that I could wade around the back wall and collect organisms since it was such a lovely day out and I already had on my water shoes. The back wall is the area to the right of the shark pond where we can go fishing. There are always lots of lobsters hiding under the rocks, so I was pretty excited to see what else I could find. This little critter was under the first rock I lifted up:

(top)     

(bottom)

It's a sea cucumber!! They are really cool because they can change their shape and when you pick it up out of the water it goes all mushy in your hands. This little guy was short and fat when i found him, but in this picture he's longer and leaner.

I saw a bunch of lobsters and some blue crabs. I also saw some really pretty neon blue worms and some mangrove snappers. I kept finding sea anemones attached to rocks. Finally I found this beautiful purple anemone in a sandier patch so I could collect it easily without harming it:

It looked much better in real life, but I'm not a photographer so it looks more dull here. It's tentacles kept sticking to my fingers and my hand.

When I got out of the water, I looked back in the ocean and realized that Charlie Cuda had been following me around. Charlie is our resident barracuda that spents the majority of his time around camp, either by the backwall or in the harbor or the swim canal. He's nearly 5 feet long and much rounder and fatter than any normal barracuda I've ever seen.



The rest of the day was spent sweeping the marina wall and doing the lost and found laundry. It wasn't nearly as exciting as my morning, but it could have been worse.

I'm on a Boat

I'm king of the world, on a boat like Leo. If you're on the shore then you're sure not me, oh!

I've mentioned that I'm living on a boat. I don't want you to get the wrong idea. It doesn't have a motor. It's not going anywhere unless all eight of us that live on the boat start rowing. I live in the starboard side of the Barnacle, also known as Star Barn. It's the side closest to land.

This is the gap between the dock and my room. Sometimes when it's windy it gets a lot bigger. Also, I wake up when there's a lot of wind because the boat bangs into the dock.

You probably can't tell in this picture, but there's actually a lot more space in here than I had in my other room. (Pete hung that British flag up above my bed. It's actually a tea towel.)

This is the divider between starboard and port Barnacle. You can see that there are bunk rails stacked on top of it. That's because there's about a foot and a half space there. I can hear everything everyone says on the other side of the room. It sucks when you're sleeping and someone comes home late on the other side and doesn't realize anyone's there. Some people are very loud on their cell phones.

This past weekend was wonderful. I had a three day weekend and got to go to the Dry Tortugas on Sunday. I'll have more on that soon when I get pictures from Pete. Then Monday I went fishing offshore. I only caught two undersize yellowtail snappers, but collectively our boat caught 9 legal size fish, including the two mutton snappers that Christine caught (It was her first time fishing!). We ate the fish for dinner that night and it was delicious. I've been forcing myself to taste fish lately and it turns out that I like a lot of it!

I've decided that I need to get into better shape since I'm going to be in Nicole's wedding in July and she weighs like 12 pounds. It's basically impossible to diet at camp because they feed us three meals, six days a week. My plan is to run about three days a week until the water gets warmer and I can start swimming laps. Three days a week isn't much, but if I can keep it up then I'll try to do like 5 days a week.

So today I went for a run/walk. When I got back, I went to Windsurfing Beach to stretch in the shade. (Under that little wooden structure on the left of the picture)

 Well, there I am stretching when I see this fin surface about 50 feet off from where I am. It was four dolphins. They started splashing around and they kept surfacing a lot more than usual. They were doing shallow dives where their caudal fins (tail) kept flying up out of the water and splashing down. At first, I thought they were feeding and then I realized there were no fish freaking out on the surface. I was almost positive that they were mating, and then I heard that these dolphins had been at the back wall and they were so close that you could definitely confirm that they were mating. It was amazing.

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

I'm back at camp! This month is going to be pretty slow with work, because we don't start to get a lot of school's in until the end of February. I've already had my first run at coordinating (I design the school's schedule for their stay at camp and teach a teaching group as well as helping the other teaching groups for the school). It went really well. The last day we went to the Bahia Honda channel and collected critters in the tide pools by the bridge. The students found some really neat stuff including a few sea hares, like this one:

(This is not one of the ones actually collected. I found this picture at InvertabratesofBelize.com)

One of the sea hares inked all over my hands. It literally took me about 10 minutes to get the purple ink off of my hands. At least their ink smells like roses.

I'm Staying!

My internship ended two weeks ago, and I was really getting worried about my future unemployment. I've been looking for jobs, but of the few jobs that were available most of them required me to have at least my masters. I don't have my masters. Sure, I'd like to get it in the future, but I'm also not quite ready to go back to school. Plus, I haven't decided what I'd like to get my masters in. Biology is broad, so there are a lot of options on masters programs and I'm not prepared to make that kind of decision right now.

Anyways, I was moping around camp trying to forget that in 10 days I was going to be unemployed and probably have to return to my job in retail when I got offered a year long instructor position. Basically, I do the same teaching stuff that I've been able to do since I finished my training, but now I get paid better for it. I also don't have to go through that busy training session again.

I'm definitely excited about staying, and a few of the people that were interns with me this past season are staying on to work for another season or two. Hopefully, it will be a great year.



Since I've been bad about putting pictures on here, these are some of my favorite pics from this past season:

1. We got stuck at the bar because the cops shut off our road so they could search for some crazy guy.

2. We were out for someone's birthday. I have no idea why Jen is pretending to sleep in this pic, but it's amazing.

3. I told that security guy that it was Scottie's birthday so she could dance on stage. It was not her birthday. That's her in the pink.

4. Out for Fantasy Fest. Jen and I were Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Danielle was some kind of cowgirl.

5. The Christmas party. Yes, Pete and I always take retarded pictures. These are not the only two.

6. I want a hippopotamus for Christmas. Only a hippopotamus will do.

Fantasy Fest

When I first went away to college, I realized that Halloween is an excuse to dress as ridiculous or as slutty as one would like to. The best part is, no one calls you a whore, unless that's what you're dressed up as, of course.

Now that I'm in the Keys, I find that Halloween weekend is turned into Halloween week, and it's called Fantasy Fest. Fantasy Fest is an excuse for men and women between the ages of 18 and 98 to not wear clothes at all and somehow call it a costume. Mostly the people who attend are between the ages of 50 and 70. Body painting is also a big deal at Fantasy Fest.

Several people were painted as Avatars this year. I saw an older woman that had a crab body painted on her stomach and it's stalk eyes were painted onto her sagging breasts. Pretty classy, if you ask me.

What was I dressed up as you might wonder....
Tinker Bell one night and a ninja turtle (Raphael) the next.