July 6, Friday
Arrived yesterday morning at Salado Barra (a barra is a sand bar). Tiny community but it does have a church and school (recently expanded to three rooms). No electricity=candles at night (not too bad) and no fans or AC (not so good). Utila will feel plush after this!
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| The old fruit train which is now used to get people and supplies to Salado Barra. |
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| No electricity means reading your e-reader by candle light. |
Last night was spent walking the beach. We were out for about six hours total with about three hours of sleep in the middle. We walked, best guess, around eight miles over the course of the night.
Today was lazy. Beach profiling was on the schedule but got canceled due to a concert, among other things. Angela, very excited about the electric cello, had spread word that a concert would be held at 5:30 that evening and alerted Robyn of her plans around 2:30 pm.
Tonight we actually get to sleep since tomorrow's Sabbath. Then, it's back to patrolling the beach tomorrow night.
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| The electric cello which has accompanied Robyn to Honduras and inspired the name of her blog, "Have Cello, Will Travel." (http://sciencerobyn.blogspot.com/) |
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| This little girl, sitting on Ariana's lap, insisted, in Spanish I couldn't follow, on carrying Robyn's music folder for me. |
July 8, Sunday
Last night was spent back on the beach. No turtles again and none of the nice wind of Thursday night. We were only able to do two teams for the first shift as only one military guy showed at 2 am. I'm happy to note it was much easier to stay awake this time, though.
Yesterday afternoon, Angela hired a guide and we went canoeing on Rio Salado.
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| The professor, Ariana, and our guide. |
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| White-faced Monkeys are much crisper in person, I promise. |
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| Working with the GPS for profiling. |
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| The portion of West Beach near the entrance. |
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| Fishermens' huts where the trail runs onto the beach. The best sight since, in the middle of the night, it means bed is only a few minutes away. |
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| Using a transect line to determine variation of the slope on the beach. |
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| Ariana, Angela, and the professor (L to R) work on measuring the hight of the line above the sand. |
We are sitting in the midst of a tropical storm, in all its glory. Driving rain since an hour ago, thunder, lightening, and wind. Consequently, beach patrol has been canceled. Pause a moment to let the beauty of those words sink in. Actually, we were already going to be skipping tomorrow night so we could do some profiling so we're just switching which is the off patrol night. Still, as the rain drips into our room and each peal of thunder sounds closer, I am very, very glad we are indoors tonight. As such, I am thoroughly enjoying the impressive storm.
July 11, Wednesday
Final day in Salado Barra. Tomorrow morning, we leave on the first train to head back to La Ceiba. Angela and Ariana will be in La Ceiba until Sunday, while the professor heads to Teguc on Friday. Robyn and I will catch the ferry to Utila the same day.
Yesterday was beach profiling in the morning and patrol in the evening. Profiling is beginning to speed up but, overall, is still moving painfully slow. Patrol is getting easier, though turtles have yet to be seen. We had nice views of four or five different lightening storms, though. I'm growing accustomed to tromping across uneven terrain without aid of a flashlight and dripping sweat the entire time. Waking at 2 always produces many questions about our choice of summer activity but once we get walking, wake up, and start talking, things seem much more tolerable again. Robyn, Ariana, and I have especially discovered that discussions about books make walking easier while games of hangman make breaks at either end of our stretch of beach go by faster.
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| Bonus: we got a lovely sunrise this morning! |
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| Robyn, Ariana, and I (L to R) after a night of turtle patrol. |
Maybe more questions of earth shaking relevance will occur later, but for now the thought that occurs to me is: how does one give an electric cello concert in a place that has no electricity?
ReplyDeleteThe cello has a battery to power the electronics that are in the cello itself. It does have to be plugged into an external speaker of some sort in order to amplify the sound and the professor happened to have a small one with him. The speaker did die towards the end of the concert, though.
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