Utila Again

Yes, I am back in civilized country. In this instance, read "civilized" as "electricity and regular running water." Internet is merely a nice bonus. 


We left Cuero y Salado yesterday morning and had several hours in La Ceiba before Robyn and I caught the afternoon ferry to Utila. We are now settling into our apartment and greatly enjoying the air conditioning unit in our bedroom. 


Photos still need a little bit of editing and sorting so this post will be more general info about our time in Salado Barra (the community we were staying in within Cuero y Salado) and photos will follow soon, I promise. 


Cuero was fun, though it took some getting used to. We were staying in a very colonial-plantation style house which used to be owned by the head of the local branch of the Dole fruit company. The area used to be full of pineapple and coconut plantations for Dole. The house was donated to FUCSA (the NGO administering the refuge; FUndacion Cuero y SAlado) for use by visiting volunteers and researchers. The house has two stories with a kitchen, dinning room, sitting area, and one bedroom downstairs, and three bedrooms and a separate bath upstairs. Our group had the upstairs area. Robyn, Ariana (another undergrad researcher), and I shared one bedroom, the professor and Angela (a Honduran hired by ProTECTOR) each had their own room. The bedroom downstairs is used by volunteers from the Falls Brook Centre, another NGO which is doing a lot of habitat restoration in the area. The kitchen did have cabinets and a sink but cooking was done on a small three burner camping stove hooked up to a propane tank. 


We had no electricity and only sporadic running water. Candles and flashlights took the place of electric lights, although we weren't in the house after dark much because of the beach patrols. Water came on at various intervals for varying amounts of time throughout the day. If water was running, any outstanding dishes were done and three large buckets were filled for use during bucket showers. There is an actual shower in the bathroom but it was lacking a handle. Pliers could be used to turn it on, but buckets were usually easier, especially if you didn't want to be tied to when the water was running for your shower schedule. Bottled drinking water had to be sent from La Union, the small town where the train starts. When we had an empty water jug, it was sent out on the train in the care of the military and it was usually returned that sometime that afternoon. 


We did beach patrol nearly every night, the only exceptions being Friday night and once when there was a torrential downpour, complete with thunder and lightening. No turtles, unfortunately. Each evening, we patrolled half of the entire beach--either East or West Beach (named by us for ease of data collection). During a shift, a group patrolled half of that night's beach (so a quarter of the entire beach). We left the house every night at 7pm. We would walk a given section of the beach until 11 pm, return to the house and sleep till 2 am, and then go back to the beach until 5 am. We then slept as long as we needed to, usually waking up anywhere between 8:30 am and noon. We always patrolled in two groups (Angela and the professor and then Robyn, Ariana, and I), with each group accompanied by a military personnel. 


We also did some beach profiling, although only on two days since it's preferable to do the profiling in the mornings when it's cooler and when you won't be out on the beach a few short hours later. We did have to go out one afternoon but the rest was done the morning after the rain storm. We used two methods of profiling. First, was to use a transect line to get an idea of the slope of the beach and how it changed from the water line to the vegetation. The second was to use a transect line laid across the edging vegetation to approximate the percentage cover of vegetation vs sand and the type of vegetation. We did very little of the profiling because we were doing just enough of the profiling to train Angela and Ariana since they will be on their own at Salado Barra for the rest of the summer.


Robyn and I will be meeting with Lindsay, the grad student we're working with, today and should get our marching orders for the next couple months. It will likely look very similar to our schedule at Cuero y Salado though it will be exciting to investigate a new beach. I'm also looking forward to starting up my divemaster training again. 


Stay posted for photos! Tantalizing hint, they include a cello concert and monkeys.

Striking an "awesome scientist pose" at sunrise on East Beach.