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 Academic & Student News from The Center for Marine Resource Studies
If you've ever wondered what life at a research field station is like, read our regular postings of "News from the Field."SFS students send in reports every few weeks to let us know about their current research and academic activities, interactions with the local community and personal reflections on their SFS program.
 Academic News - Dr. David Wilson, Center Director, February 25, 2005
As the semester nears the end of week four, the students will face their third field examination on the identification of corals and other invertebrates that inhabit the reefs around South Caicos. In addition, they have almost completed their first field exercise and written scientific report that examines the status of Queen Conch (Strombus gigas) stocks in the East Harbour Lobster and Conch Reserve and adjacent areas. During three field sessions, the students conducted underwater visual censuses (UVC). UVC's can provide comprehensive information on the distribution and abundance of animal and plant communities and often form the basis of coastal monitoring programs that examine the spatial and temporal effects of natural and anthropogenic disturbances, as well as the success of resource management practices. The students will complete three such field exercises/reports during the semester before writing their major Directed Research (DR) paper. The DR projects running this semester are 1) The role of South Caicos as a nursery ground for juvenile lemon sharks Negaprion brevirostris, 2) Finfish fishery study - finfish landings on South Caicos, 3) Development of a general management plan for the Marine Protected Areas of South Caicos, and 4) Status of Staghorn coral (Acropora palmata) populations on reefs of South Caicos, TCI.
 Student News - Anna Johnson, Student Affairs Manager
The past two weeks have been incredibly busy with morning lectures, afternoon identification sessions, evening guest speakers, and this past weekend spent on Grand Turk and Salt Cay.
The school was visited by three different guest speakers—Pastor Malcolm from the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church is a pastor as well as a local drug counselor. He described some of the problems that the community has with drugs as well as his efforts to counsel individuals. We were also visited by two of the local lobster fisherman. The detail that they used to describe their fishing practices was quite interesting to the students. Both fishermen described how they use a GPS to identify where they had laid their traps, how their traps were made and their shape, their costs and revenue, and the problems with finding local labor. One of the gentleman also fishes for Red Snapper in the off season and he described how to use long line to fish.
About ten students participated in the high school's cross county run either to run or to cheer the rest of us. Chris Cote came in first of the SFS students, placing 13th overall. Evening volleyball is also becoming quite popular. The schoolteachers come and join us when they can and since they are Filipino and Jamaican and the SFS staff represents about seven different nationalities, the cross-cultural mix is impressive.
On Friday the 18th, all students left for Grand Turk and Salt Cay. We landed in Grand Turk, walked into town, and headed to the National Museum which focuses on The Molasses Reef Shipwreck, which was thought to be the Nina, one of Columbus's ships. After lunches of grouper sandwiches and burgers, we left for Salt Cay—population 60 to 101 depending on the season--by boat and arrived in time to set up tents and explore the beach before dark. Salt Cay, as the name implies, was still producing salt as recently as 1973 but now supports itself on tourism from divers and whale watchers.
On Saturday, many of the students headed out whale watching. Dolphins followed them the whole way out until they found whales and since they were having such a good time, Olli, the boat captain, offered to take them to a beach to play in the water. One student described it as one of the most pristine beaches she had ever seen. Some of the more surfing-oriented students were very excited to see the Quicksilver boat (a boat sponsored by Quicksilver surfing company that explores surf spots) with one of the top female surfers on board. Before heading to dinner, Tim Dunn, who works as a divemaster on Grand Turk and whose family owns one of the oldest houses in the TCI, the White House, took us on a tour of the house. His family built the house around 1820 and it was used as a warehouse for salt as well as a residence. The interior of the house, complete with period furniture and books, is as impressive if not more so than the physical house. That evening we went to the Island Thyme Bistro for dinner and a party. The place was packed with Salt Cay tourists and locals as well as visitors from Grand Turk to see the live band and dance.
We woke up Sunday morning, anticipating a boat ride back to South Caicos, but unfortunately the weather had rolled in during the night, making the passage unsafe. That left us rather stranded, so after many hours of negotiating with busy airlines and busy charter boats, we were able to fly 19 of us to Grand Turk and the rest arrived by boat. Generous friends in Grand Turk allowed us to camp in their backyard and helped us with transportation until we were finally able to get everyone home on Monday. Students have returned to a regular schedule and are learning to use Excel and Statistica so that they will be able to analyze their Directed Research.
 Student Reflections
“The first few days on South Caicos consisted of lots of tours and getting introduced to our new home for the next three months. Lots has changed since then in the academic arena. The course load of work has been quite impressive, but not too overwhelming. Each night is spent reading and preparing for next day's lectures, writing papers, and studying for tests. We are learning tons of new information about all areas of marine ecology, from seagrass meadows to fisheries management to implementing new policies and measures. The issues that we are presented with are very real and exciting to tackle to come up with solutions. Of course as we are down in the Caribbean, there is also relaxing and fun times. Each Sunday, a group of us students walk over to East Beach to relax and work on homework assignments. Some of us will go on runs during the day to get our little bit of exercise in. Others will go and play basketball nearby the public school and interact with the local high school kids and children. Our recent field trip to the islands of Grand Turk and Salt Cay has been one of the best days and most random days to-date. On the best day, we went whale watching and saw four or five different whales, a group of dolphins swimming next to the boat, and the most beautiful beach on Salt Cay. For the random day, we had no idea how or when we would be getting back to the school on South Caicos. That day ended up with a small group taking a boat to Grand Turk while everyone else took a plane that was suppose to go to South Caicos, but ended up in Grand Turk. But in the end, we all made it safely back to school only to have classes until past 10 that night. This shows the commitment to the academics for which we are all down here for. The Directed Research projects are starting up in the next couple of weeks and everyone is excited to get started on them and to the last couple of months we have left. The time I have spent so far on South Caicos has been unforgettable and I look forward to the time yet to come.”
-Noah Settergren, Gonzaga University
“They say that any excursion is not just about the destination, but about the journey. Last weekend's Salt Cay camping extravaganza proved this adage wrong when we found that in fact, it's all about the return trip.
After an uneventful flight to Grand Turk on Friday, ‘Team Camping' took a tour of the History Museum, circumnavigated the town on foot looking for ice cream and eventually settled on overrunning the elegant Osprey Hotel, taking full advantage of their freshwater pool, tolerant staff and gorgeous ocean views. All were sad to leave the quaint little island; little did we know we would be returning in just 48 hours.
A short boat trip to Salt Cay and we were setting up camp, checking out the town and feasting on lentils, peanut butter and granola. Saturday was relaxing for all. Those who chose to go whale watching got a great sea tour of the island and a glimpse of a few choice marine animals, including dolphins, turtles and the Quicksilver surf team. Still others chose to remain on the beach, chatting and sleeping but mostly doing schoolwork. Saturday night, the SFS crew attended a party held in our honor at Island Thyme restaurant, and after our first seafood dinner since arriving, we danced the night away to Caribbean covers of Van Morrison.
Sunday, we sadly prepared for our departure only to find that the rough seas had indeed trapped us in paradise! The resulting destruction of our itinerary is far to complex to describe, but the result was all staff and students arriving at various times, by various modes of transportation in the backyard of an SFS friend in Grand Turk. So we did what we do best here, and that's set up camp. The lentils were gone, the mood was desperate, and general consensus was that we were never going to get back to South Caicos, but after just one windy, demon-donkey scream-filled night on Grand Turk, we were headed to the airport, and yes, by only 2:00 p.m. we were home sweet home, running data analysis with Aaron.”
-Dru Prescott, Boston University
 “This past weekend's field trip has been one of our most amazing experiences since arriving in the Turks and Caicos Islands. We started our trip off in Grand Turk, where we visited the historical museum, enjoyed some local cuisine and island beverages at seaside cafes and started off our souvenir shopping. Many of us also had our first good freshwater rinse since beginning this program in the Osprey Beach hotel's pool. After our day in Grand Turk, we were boated over to Salt Cay, where we would spend the next two days camping. The next day, most of us set off on a whale watching excursion, and although we only saw whales in the distance, we had an amazingly close encounter with a pod of dolphins who decided to entertain us with their leaps and flips. The captain then dropped us off at Great Sand Cay, where we discovered probably one of the most pristine white sand beaches and sparkling turquoise water in all of the Turks & Caicos-and we had it all to ourselves except for the pro surfers from the Quicksilver boat, The Crossing, who were doing a photo shoot. That night, Island Thyme held a party in honor of our visit to Salt Cay and we had a wonderful time meeting the locals and dancing to a live Caribbean band.
We were scheduled to return to South the following morning; however when we awoke, we found that the wind had picked up, preventing us from being able to boat home and leaving flying as our only option. As we soon discovered though, getting a flight out of Salt Cay can be quite difficult. Long story short - we made our way back to Grand Turk by various means of transportation where we spent the night in Lavardo's backyard, then gradually made it back to South the following day. The trip ended up to be quite an adventure, and although no one exactly returned more rested than when they left, I don't think we would have wanted it to go any other way.”
-Megan Stone, University of Miami
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