Dominica Day 15: Tuesday June 6th
Activities:
This morning seemed to be a lot harder for everyone to make it out of bed. Most people made it down around 7:10 am. Anchal actually woke up, checked Instagram, liked my pic, and then fell back to sleep so I still had to go wake her up.
After breakfast we met Clem to get on the bus for our morning adventures. First we drove over to freshwater lake where we walked around and enjoyed the view. It was so foggy and we were all regretting not bringing a jacket. We then walked up the hill towards the Boeri Lake trail.
On the way we passed by a hot spring which was really cool. After that we started the hike with Clem leading the way. It was very interesting to hear him talking about Dominican politics and what they call different plants. He said they had spent $65 million on a n energy project that they could have provided solar to the entire island with that much money. I think it is very interesting that even such a small island can be so politicized. We also saw a lot of interesting plants on the way there–my favorite is a tree that when you smell the leaves they smell just like mangoes. (I brought a whole handful of those leaves back with me to the station because if there aren’t mangoes left to eat at least there will be the smell).
Once we got up to Boeri lake it was so foggy that we couldn’t see the other side of the lake. it also started to rain and it rained HARD! So it was wet, windy, and cold at the top-but oh well. I even had my own little dance party in the rain (Travis hated that, lol).
Some people swam while we were up there but about half of us concluded that it was much too cold for that. The way down the trail was extremely slippery–i was a little worried about my camera getting wet or crushed. Lindsay also kept getting really mad at me for jumping off rocks because she was paranoid that I was going to fall and break both of my legs. But luckily enough that didn’t happen and we all made it down (mostly) unscathed.
The drive back to the station was relatively uneventful. I did however forget to mention that on the way there we stopped so we could see the highest road on Dominica that we drove on during the ride there.
We also pulled over for Woolley to collect leaves out the window–something that would only happen during a field biology study abroad.
We made it back to the station around 1:30 PM. A lot of people took advantage of that time to catch up on their journals or take a nap. I could be found, like always, enjoying the view from the veranda and trying to be semi-productive with writing my individual paper.
I’ve decided to map the distance from the big cities but instead examine what is upstream of the most polluted water so I started working on that this afternoon.
After a restful afternoon we ate a yummy dinner, and then I helped Jack with his project. We walked along the road in the pouring rain to climb down to release the crab and then we walked back to the station and down tot he river that way. When we were almost all the way down we caught a giant crab that was just sitting on the path–easiest crab hunt yet.
I am so exhusted and ready for a chill day tomorrow.
Project status: I am pretty much still at the same place as yesterday. Most everything field and lab wise is done but there is still quite a bit of writing and data analysis to do. Tomorrow is a research day so I will have a lot of time to work on my project data and start reaching some conclusions. marine group still has a lot to do.
Other random notes:
We are all very nervous for Boiling lake
I still haven’t napped
I named the newest crab Carl
I am very scared of getting hit by a car here.