Oceans Live '97

Journals from South Caicos

  From the week ending May 9, 1997


Final Countdown
Brendan Reed - University of Richmond

It is the final week for us here on South Caicos, and the work has piled up! All of us have to wrap up our directed research papers, take the case study final exams, and perform the last field identification practical. I have just completed my research paper on East Bay, and the final draft was a total of 64 pages! I never thought I could write something that long! It took me all night to finish the paper, and I finally handed it in to my advisor at eleven in the morning. The case study tomorrow will be dealing with how to bring tourism to the island without effecting its coral reefs and other natural habitats.

Even though all of this is on our minds, we are realizing that we only have a handful of days left in South Caicos with each other. For the final week I hope to go on my 30th scuba dive. I only need four more dives to reach this goal. Besides that, I am really just looking forward to spending a lot of time with all the new friends I made during this semester. It has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.

 

Semester Wrap-Up
Kathy Feasel and Erica Fenton

Our time here in the Caribbean is quickly coming to a close, and we are experiencing bitter-sweet emotions. On the one hand we are happy to be finished with all of our papers and exams. It has been satisfying to see how much work that we have accomplished. We now know over 100 species of marine organisms, and we have experience writing scientific papers. On the other hand we are very sad to leave all of the new friends that we have made as well as our beautiful surroundings.

Looking back on our time here, we have many favorite memories. They include spotting the whale, hanging out at our favorite gathering area called Trenchtown, playing with our friends from the Big Brother/Sister Program, Heather Ross laughing all the time, camping out, hanging out at the beach, playing soccer against the Haitians, birthday parties, Valentine's Day dinner, night snorkeling in Bell Sound, Bruno, and snorkeling and diving everyday.

We all hope that we will keep in touch over the years and plan for a reunion at some time. There will be many tears shed at the airport at our final departure. It's crazy how far friendships can come in just three months!


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