Last week, after our three final exams, most of the students and staff packed up
for a semester break in the Dominican Republic. It was a memorable
experience to step off the plane and see the lush scenery in the Dominican
Republic compared to the sparse scenery on South Caicos. I traveled with four
other girls in one jeep. It wasn’t the most comfortable ride, but it was an
adventure. On our first night we stayed in a hotel near the beach and frolicked
in the pool. Because of the abundant amount of rainfall in the Dominican
Republic, we could all take as many showers as we wished.
On the second day we visited the waterfalls in the mountains. It isn’t easy
finding your way around the Dominican Republic because of the lack of road
signs. Luckily, Texaco stations were everywhere, and we took full advantage of
any directions that they could provide us. After a couple of days in the car
exploring the country, we made our way back to the beach. The people in the
Dominican Republic were some of the nicest I have ever met, and we always
felt welcome there.
Finally, on the last day, the whole group met back in the same town and we
were quite eager to share stories of our adventures. It was sad to say good-bye
to the Dominican Republic and to our vacation, but we still had a great
experience!
This past weekend, we had a break from the routine of the beans and rice that
are the staple of our diet on South Caicos. We tried one of the local marine
resources for dinner: spiny lobster. The Caribbean Spiny Lobster (Panulirus
argus) is one of the subjects of our studies here at the School for Field Studies.
This lobster represents an important part of the fishery and the economy of the
Turks and Caicos Islands. If you’ve ever had dinner at a Red Lobster
restaurant, more likely than not you would have eaten lobster that used to live
around South Caicos.
This weekend we cooked our own lobster. Drew, our senior intern at the
Center, went down to the fishing docks and arranged to buy some lobster from
the local fishermen. He came back with 40 pounds of lobster! He then rounded
up some volunteers to clean and prepare the lobsters. Cleaning a spiny lobster
involves a couple of steps. First, you have to cut off the tail of the lobster with a
knife. The rest of the body does not have much edible material, and therefore is
not good to eat. Once the tail is removed, it has to be cleaned in order to
protect us from eating undesirable parts like the digestive system. Having
completed this second step, we placed the tails in a bucket of water to prevent
them from drying out, because we planned to eat the lobsters the following
night.
Our wonderful cook, Izzy, prepared the lobster by cutting the tails into smaller
chunks. These chunks were then cooked in a creamy sauce that was
magnificent! Everyone that tried the lobster loved it and many went back for
seconds. Overall, the weekend’s lobster experience was a very enjoyable and
tasty one. We hope that we’ll be able to try more of the local food very soon.
Intern Island Life
Evie Turley
Here in South Caicos, interns play a vital role in the functioning of the center.
There are three interns here, and we share dorm rooms. Our duties include
cooking breakfast for the forty residents of the center, supervising student
camp-outs, and conducting holiday affairs like the underwater Easter egg hunt.
We do anything that needs to be done in order for the program to run smoothly
and to promote the protection of the marine environment.
Every morning while the students are in class, we fill the fuel tanks for the boats,
SCUBA tanks for the divers, and check on boat moorings. The afternoons are
filled with field identifications and data gathering for directed research projects.
We are required to learn all of the corals, fishes, algae and invertebrates of the
area so that we can teach the students to identify them. We serve as
divemasters on all water activities, including snorkeling and SCUBA diving. We
lead two trips to the reef each afternoon, and on Saturdays we are in the water
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
It is an unforgettable experience working with such motivated students and
experienced professors. Overall, I have gained more skills and experience
during the past few months than I ever could have imagined. The island life of
an intern is hard at times, but also a wonderful experience!
