Leatherback Turtles at Grande Riviere

Last weekend I went to the NE corner of Trinidad to an area called Grande Riviere to watch the leatherback turtles lay their eggs. This is one of the last things that I felt like I had to experience before moving from Trinidad.

Leatherback turtles are pretty amazing creatures. They have to be the closest thing to dinosaurs left on earth. They measure from 1 -3 meters long, about 2-3 feet tall, and about 3-4 feet across. They can also reach about 800-1200 pounds. I realize that I'm math teacher mixing measurement units - deal with it.

Here's the story of how these turtles lay their eggs...

When the sun sets and darkness falls across the beach, these massive creatures come out of the ocean, back to the very beach that they were born. When the eggs hatch, the hatchling turtles dig out of the sand and by the touch and smell of the sand, they know where they were born.

They find the beach by following the moonlight. This sometimes causes problems with hotels on the beach, because the turtles think the lights from the hotel are the moon. Apparently the turtles do not see (or are not effected) by red lights, so all the lights outside our hotel were red. Also the tour guides from the Trinidad Forestry Division have red head lamps to show you around at night. Most of my pictures were taken after dawn, when the last stragglers were on the beach.

After finding a spot that they feel is suitable, they start digging a hole with their back flippers. These flippers take out about 2 tablespoons of sand at a time. They go back and forth with each flipper, digging and digging, until they get a hole about 2 feet deep.

After they feel the hole is deep enough, they lay their eggs. They lay about 70 eggs and do this every 2-3 years after they mature. It takes about 15 years for the turtles to mature, and they can live to about 80-100 years old. About a third of the eggs that they lay (the last third) are infertile eggs. They do this because after the eggs are laid, they bury them with the sand and then compact it with their hind flippers. These infertile eggs act as a buffer to the fertilized eggs in case the sand crushes the eggs or if they get dug up by stray dogs, other turtles, birds, etc. While they are laying their eggs, the turtles go into a trance and this is when white light does not effect them and also when the Forestry Division will tag the turtle for data tracking and conservation purposes.

The picture above is the only picture in this series that was taken at night.

After the eggs are covered up by the hind flippers, the turtle then takes its front flippers and starts swooping back the sand around it to cover up and camouflage the nest. The span of these front flippers are about 6-7 feet when fully outstretched.

Once the turtle feels the nest is fully camouflaged, they head back into the ocean. The whole nesting process generally takes around 45-60 minutes. Although one that we watched at night was up for about 2 hours. She was really big and we guessed that she was a little more experienced with the process, so she was a little more careful about making sure her eggs aren't dug up by predators.

Look at that. Doesn't it look like some kind of ancient dinosaur? So cool.

Some other interesting things we learned about these leatherback turtles is that they have some of the softest shells of all sea turtles. This is because their defense against predators in the ocean (sharks, whales, boats, etc.) is to dive to extreme depths in a short amount of time. They can descend to 100 meters in 6-7 seconds. This is close to the length of a football field, including 1 end zone.

Being a diver now, I can attest to the pressure that can be exerted if proper measures are not taken to equalize when you descend. If the turtles did not have a softer shell, the pressure of the depth would crush their shells.

This had to be one of the coolest things that I've been able to experience while living here. And it was also kind of cool that we were there on Mother's Day.

J'ouvert!!!

Well, I guess I should know better than to promise a blog update "in a few days" or at any time. Seems consistency with this thing is not my strong suit. Although I'm trying to get better. Anyway...

J'ouvert!! J'ouvert (pronounced joo-vay) occurs the night before Carnival Monday. Well, actually it begins on Carnival Monday at about 2 AM. You still sign up for different bands like you do for Carnival and you still follow around a series of huge flat-bed trucks; one filled with a dj and speakers, one filled with a pan band, and numerous drink trucks. The music is still deafening and people are still jumping and dancing (chipping and wining) in the streets.

The thing that differentiates J'ouvert from Carnival (which is also called "pretty mas" because everyone dresses up in their fancy outfits), other than the partying from 2 AM until 8 AM, is that you are covered in...something. Some bands use paint, some use mud, some use oil. The band that me and my friends played was called the Hard Wining Devils, or more aptly called, Cocoa Devils. Yes, we were covered in cocoa.

Me, Katie and Aaron - sporting our new look for evening. Aaron is doing his best Blue Steel.

As the morning progresses and as you wind through the streets of Port of Spain, you often come across another band. Sometimes there is room to pass along both sides of the street, but often one band waits while the other passes. But what is certain to occur whether you are passing or waiting, is that the substance of choice from the different bands get passed back and forth between each band. And as you can see below, people get pretty colorful.

Me, Nick & Gina, Ginger, Meredith and a two of N&G's friends who came down from Canada for Carnival.

With all this splashing of mud, cocoa, paint, etc., one has to think ahead a bit. If you have ever spent time in Port of Spain around Carnival, you'll see nicely painted walls with paint smears on it and big splotches on the streets and sidewalks. And if you're not careful where you park, your car might get hit a bit too. Here's a couple that I saw as I was driving home.

My car was on a side street, so I escaped unscathed. Although I did find some cocoa on my seat when I went out later that day. Oh, and I've been told that with a 2-3 good washes, most cars come clean.

After the night of revelry, everyone heads back home. Some to clean up and immediately head back out for Carnival Monday. Some, like myself, clean up and go to bed. I can't even begin to say how much fun this was. Even though I did not play pretty mas, I am very happy that I have this to take away from Carnival this year. It was a most incredible experience!

I have found a number of ways in Trinidad that when the adults play, they still get the pleasures of being a kid and don't mind getting messy. It's such a great feeling!!

Carnival Tuesday 2010: Part 2

As I was going through pictures with some friends last night, I realized that I missed one of the most surprising costumes that I saw out on the road...

As I was going through pictures with some friends last night, I realized that I missed one of the most surprising costumes that I saw out on the road...

Can you believe that they walked around the streets of Trinidad, in 90+ degree temperatures? That's insane!! But how cool are those costumes?

Here are a few more pictures and costumes that I like that I thought I would throw out here since I wanted to add the Trini Revelers (the mas camp above). Enjoy!

These guys weren't in any mas camp (which is short of masquerade camp if I didn't already mention that somewhere), but I always think people who can do stuff like this are pretty cool.

Next up should be either J'ouvert or Kings & Queens. Stay tuned...

Carnival Tuesday 2010

Wow! It has proven to me to be much more difficult to keep this blog maintained than I had anticipated this year. As previously mentioned, I have had a much more difficult workload and on top of that, I've been looking for a new job as my contract is up in June. But that is all a discussion for another time. Today we are here to celebrate Carnival!!!!

Carnival is an experience that can only be experienced in person. The excitement, the energy, the parties (called fetes)...I can try to explain to you or show you in pictures. But really, to truly understand, you need to live it.

This year, I was going to play Carnival (buy a costume and "chip" all around Port of Spain), but at the last minute I decided to not actively participate, but to rather try to document it a bit. I bought a new camera over our winter holiday, and I was itching to use it. So the following posts will be things that I saw or experienced during Carnival season this year. They necessarily be in chronological order, but I will do my best to get everything out there. I would go in sequential order, but that would mean that it would take me a while to get these pictures up, and I know there are people out there who are anxious to see them.

So without further ado, here is a handful of pictures I took of various bands...

Here is the littlest masquerader I saw along the parade route.

And now we have reached the "end" of the picture show.

J'ouvert and Kings & Queens pictures will be along in the coming days. I promise.

My goodness it's been a while.

I guess it's been a good 4 months since I last posted. Holy smokes! Where has the time gone? Well, not much has happened, but at the same time, quite a bit has happened.

In the category of not much happening...In my last post (back in August), I was training for Coast 2 Coast, an adventure race that consisted of running, biking and kayaking across the entire northern coast of Trinidad. I was in a 3 man team where I was going to be doing the running legs of the race. However, during the training, I was out on one of the trails that I would be running in during the actual race, and as I was coming down off a rock that was in the middle of the trail as we were going downhill. I jumped down at a slight angle to try to slow myself down and some rocks under foot came loose as I landed and I sprained my ankle pretty bad.

It was swollen for a little over a week or so and I finally went to an orthopedic doctor who took some x-rays of it. He confirmed that it wasn't broken, but it was a Type II sprain. I don't know what that means, but there there are only three types of sprain and I was in the middle. Ultimately, I had to start going to rehab and here I am, 3 months later, still with a swollen ankle and still going to rehab to try to rebuild my ankle strength.

The byproduct of this sprain has meant no ultimate frisbee, no hashing, no running (or training for the half and full marathons down here in Trinidad), no yoga, no hiking, etc. etc. etc. My days have been quite inactive, although I am slowly able to start running on a treadmill now. I'm still in physical therapy and expect to not be fully back to into all of my activities until after Christmas (at the earliest) and most likely later than that.

So what has been keeping me busy is my class load. This year I am teaching two new classes: Pre-Calculus and AP Statistics. Pre-Calculus thus far hasn't been too bad, but in the coming month or two, we will be getting into topics that I was never very fond of when I was in school. So this will be quite the challenge for me, to re-learn it and be able to make it more engaging for my students than it was for me when I was in school. AP Statistics is a very in depth statistics class, and I have been told is more in depth than most college introductory statistics classes. This too has topics that I haven't taught before, but I am really enjoying teaching this class as I find it incredibly applicable to every day life. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy teaching my other classes as well. I think AP Stats just offers unique content and a unique challenge for me. So it stands out as far as topics and research.

The other thing that has been keeping me busy the last few months is organizing and sorting out my resume and job search. My contract is up this year so I had to get all of this together. I never planned on trying to extend my contract here. As a matter of fact, I had intended to go to some South American schools for a few years, then jump over to Europe (hopefully the UK), and then possibly head back to the states. But some of these plans changed in the last 4 months as well.

As it turns out, when I was back home this summer, Angie and I spent a little time together (and I mean a little - something like 2-3 days). And through the course of those 2-3 days and numerous phone calls and e-mails, we realized that we needed to try to move this relationship forward instead of continuing to put it on hold. So now my plans (and job searches) are focused on England. Angie just started a 3 year contract doing social work in Essex County in England, which is just outside of northeast London. I'll be trying to get into one of the international schools in England. But if that doesn't work out, I'll look to get into one of the local schools. Fortunately for me, there is a shortage of maths teachers in England right now and we are in high demand. So hopefully the job search will be a short and prosperous one. I knew that getting a maths teaching certificate was going to be useful in finding jobs. Here's one time that I actually had some good foresight.

So that's a quick nutshell of what I've been up to. Sorry for those faithful followers of my Gouda Life and who have been really bugging me to update my blog (you three know who you are) and all those other people who also check my blog regularly but haven't been as vocal to me to update. I am hopeful now that I have broken my dry spell of not writing that I will get back into the groove again. We'll see though. It's hard to write and post things when I'm not actively participating in them (Coast 2 Coast, half-marathons, etc.) but rather supporting my friends in them.

Anyway, that's about it for now. Be on the lookout for pictures and stories from my trip to the Bahamas for Thanksgiving. If you don't hear from me before then, you will definitely hear from me when I get back from that.

Oropuche and Pitch Lake

As I mentioned, I've been doing a little swimming and snorkeling since I got back to Trinidad (as well as running, hiking, yoga, and ultimate frisbee). Aaron, Katie, myself, and a few other folks from school are also training for this event called Coast to Coast. Coast to Coast is where individuals or teams, Aaron and I are a team, run, bike and kayak across the entire northern coast of Trinidad (more about that in a later post).

Neither of us have really done much kayaking in the past, so we have been looking for ways to break ourselves in. Aaron, always being the source of our many, many adventures, found an eco-tour on the south part of the "bite" of Trinidad. So off the three of us went, along with a friend from ultimate frisbee, John and his girlfriend, Anika.

We got to the southern coast around 7:30 AM and after going over some quick tips, we were off. The kayaking was just the means of going on this eco-tour, which took us down the Oropuche river, to the Oropouche Lagoon, which was kind of like a swamp. As we were heading towards the swamp, there were two paths that we could take, the easy way and the slightly more difficult, but interesting way. Not fearing a little challenge, we took the difficult way.

This path was quite scenic and also a bit foul smelling. It's down in one of the large industrial corridors of Trinidad, where a lot of mining of natural gas and oil takes place. The water was definitely not the cleanest we have seen either. But that was not the difficult part. The difficulties were that the river got very narrow and there was also a bit of overgrowth where we actually had to chop through branches to get the kayaks through. The end result was that we got to this somewhat secluded place and got to see some interesting birds. Aaron has become quite the bird watcher, and I can kind of see why. We saw some pretty cool and colorful birds - a couple were photogenic, others not so much. Katie took these two pictures.

After checking out the birds for about 20 minutes, we had to head back, as the tide was going to start rising and would cause some additional complications for our return. So on we went. Getting through the overgrowth was a bit easier, although there were some hiccups here and there. The interesting part was almost immediately after we cleared the overgrowth and the canopy that it provided, because it started to rain. Now it is rainy season here, so we shouldn't have been too surprised to be caught in the rain. But the thing that was a bit surprising was the type of rain that we were caught in. Thunder and lightening is not all that common here, at least not in the north where I live. But this was a pretty hard and steady rain with both thunder and lightening. The fact that it was lightening and that we were in a river was not really my concern. Rather the fact that I was holding an aluminum rod/paddle was.

Needless to say, our kayak back was a bit more expedient than our casual drift into the swamp. But it was without incident, which we are all pleased about. No one capsized (although there were a couple near misses). We got the kayaks loaded up on the truck and headed back to the tour guide's house to drop off the kayaks off, change clothes and went and got some food.

After lunch, we went for a short hike, to try to see some toucans, macaws and red howler monkeys, but it was too hot and none were out to be seen. We parted ways with the eco-tour guide and since we were in the south, we decided to go to the pitch lake. This is essentially a natural opening where pitch (the stuff used to make asphalt and fill cracks in roads) comes up from innards of the earth. It doesn't look like much as you look at it from a distance or as you try to take it in from a wider point of view.

But as you get closer, it actually becomes quite interesting. You can walk on it, because the outer layer has "hardened" a bit. I say that in quotes, because during the day, when the sun is out, if you stand in a spot for a minute or two, you can actually feel yourself sinking a bit. Not a lot, but you definitely leave indentations where you stood. Another really cool thing is that there is a lot of different minerals coming up in the pitch. There are sulfur pools that people soak in for healing purposes, there are spots of iron, where the pitch has a slightly redder tint to it, and there are spots where natural algae form. But all of it comes from these cracks in the pools that you can see in this picture.

These pools are sometimes shallow and sometimes very deep, depending on the cracks in them. It was very cool to be right there and be at a place where you are basically seeing the opening to the inner layers of the earth. I've been to two volcanoes before (Mt. St. Helens and one in St. Vincent - which I should post some pictures from now that I think of it), but those are such huge openings and because they are not currently active volcanoes (in the sense that lava is flowing from them) there is a lot of hardened lava/rocks and growth so it doesn't really feel like you are looking at the openings that you are.

Every once and a while, our guide at pitch lake, would direct us to not work in a particular place and tell us to follow his path because he didn't want us to fall into a weak spot. It sounds like most of the weaker spots were around the far outside edge, but better to be safe than sorry. We did find one spot where there was an opening to some actual liquified pitch, and our guide was nice enough to show us what it looked like in it's natural state.

Kind of cool, huh?

Snorkeling in Macqueripe Bay

Among the things that I have been doing to fill my time during the last couple of weeks before summer break is over is that I have been swimming and snorkeling in a small bay about 20 minutes from my house called Macqueripe Bay. Sometimes Aaron, Katie and I go here after a hike to cool off and do a few laps and sometimes we just go to see if we can see any marine life.

From what I have been told by some locals and people who have lived here for a few years, Macqueripe used to be one of the nicest beaches in northern Trinidad. It's a very small beach & bay, but as they say, size isn't everything. But then some brilliant politicians decided that it would be good to develop some of the area around Macqueripe, as long as there wasn't a lot of clear cutting of the trees around the bay. Contracts were handed out to a company and the first thing they did was clear cut a bunch of trees, which then caused a considerable amount of run off from the land into the bay, thus dirtying up the water and reducing the visibility considerably. But sometimes you get some good currents and you'll get a day with somewhat decent visibility.

Anyway, the first time that we all went to Macqueripe after we got back from our trips to the states, Aaron, Katie and I went out to snorkel and see if we could spot anything cool. Unfortunately the visibility was quite poor and my mask kept fogging up. So as it got harder and harder to see, I would have to pop my head out of the water, wash out my mask and then go back in.

One particular time, I couldn't tell if it was the visibility or my mask starting to fog up, but I came up on this really big rock that was a little fuzzy. I was about to pull my head out of the water to clear my mask, when I noticed this huge (about 5 feet wide) white thing slowly rising up from behind the rock. I stopped kicking and just froze. My heart started racing because I had no idea what it was. Then it leveled out and swam down below and in front of me and I realized that it was a spotted eagle ray. In my snorkel, I said out loud "uhlh grnnp". It's hard to talk with the snorkel in. What I actually said was "holy crap" and the noise of my grumbling voice must have startled the eagle ray and it shot off.

This is a picture of what I saw. Not a picture that I took, but one that I found on the internet. As you can see, the bottom of manta and eagle rays is all white. This is because if predators are below them, as they look up, they will blend in with the light that the sun reflects off the surface of the water. And if predators are above them, then the spots (or other patterns on the different types of rays) will blend in with the surface of the ocean floor or coral or whatever.

I can't even begin to tell you how cool it is to see this stuff in person.