We’re all together again with the return of Janis from the farm and the Memorial Day weekend market in New Paltz, NY, accompanied by Rowan, who has been healing well and finishing his school year.
As Janis shared with customers the latest on our Ridge to Reef project, Brooks, Connor and Gavin were very active with Dr. Ruben Torres, head of Reef Check DR.
This week, Brooks and Connor worked with Dr. Torres to become Reef Check EcoDiver trainers. This training builds upon our family trip in December of 2011 to Key Largo FL where we all received our EcoDiver certification from Jessica Pfulfer . Although Gavin was too young to actually do that whole program, he studied with us and enhanced his skills in fish and invertebrate identification. Here in DR, Brooks and Connor have gained the skills to train others in these citizen science methods that provide front line data on the health of coral reefs to researchers, organizations and governments worldwide.
Ruben has shared many stories about his work here in DR and his travels abroad. He offered us a useful and poignant description of what we’re all up against, which is that so many people have their backs to the sea. We have been pondering this image, exploring it in ourselves and thinking about its value for talking with others. Connor used it in his Skype presentation to his school, described below.
We’ve made a couple of visits to the Capital. Our first trip in was to purchase charts of the coastline of Haiti– in anticipation of our work there– from an incredible map store in the Colonial district called Mapas Gaar. Santo Domingo is the oldest city of European origin in the “new world.” Our first visit there took place two days before the national elections and the city was abuzz with the impending vote. On the main roads the candidates had huge billboards every ½ mile or so! The candidate for the incumbent party won by a narrow margin.
In addition to Brooks’ and Connor’s Reef Check training, they joined Dr. Torres in a variety of other activities, giving them the opportunity to see more of the Dominican Republic and meet more people. On the 25th they performed a reef assessment as part of a resort’s certification process for recognition of “green” environmental practices. On May 26th, Brooks, Connor and Gavin motored Llyr over to La Caleta Marine Park, the MPA managed by Dr. Torres, to perform a Reef Check survey with a group of new trainees who came aboard Llyr and talked about their enthusiasm for working with Reef check and heard about our project and goals. Then they all got to drive across the island with Ruben to the northern side of the DR to the Samana Peninsula to do beach erosion surveys and water quality tests. They also helped Ruben with a coral gardening project at a resort, where rebar plots have been set up and laced with pieces of coral to help rehabilitate their reefs. The usefulness of such restoration projects is highly debated, a topic we’ll address in a later entry. The interior of Dominican Republic is mountainous with thick jungle. As one drives further north, the mountains quickly give way to extensive rice fields that stretch to the coast.
While doing survey dives, they’ve also been taking part in Lionfish control. Lionfish are abundant here, as they are across the Caribbean. They’ve also been making their way up the Eastern seaboard. Lionfish are a Pacific fish, likely introduced to this ocean through the aquarium trade. They have no predators here, reproduce rapidly, and eat all the fish around them. They do make good eating themselves, fortunately, and there is an effort to introduce them to menus everywhere. They can only be caught by spearing them, however, so that limits their capture to fishers who swim. We’ve found them to be an absolutely delicious, white-meat fish, as long as you remove the incredibly poisonous spines from their backs, best done underwater with shears.
Of great note, Gavin has found 2 seahorses while here in the DR! The rest of us have never seen one before and his sharp eyes have found two.
Connor gave a Skype presentation yesterday to an assembly at his school, Mohawk Trail Regional High. Present were Mrs. Dearborn’s Mad Science class, Mr. Lussier’s Ecology class and Ms. Schefflen’s Spanish class. He shared his experiences on the expedition, talked about Reef Check, travel abroad, and life at sea in general. He borrowed Ruben’s image of people with their backs to the sea and raised the question with his peers about how we can live our lives in ways that allow us to pursue our personal interests and which build our curiosity and responsibility in the larger world.
These are our last few days in Dominican Republic. We’ve really enjoyed our time here, including getting to know Tony and Lisa Torres (Tony and Ruben are brothers) who run the boatyard here. The staff here at Marina Zar Par have all been very helpful; we offer special thanks to Raoul, dockmaster at the Marina, who has helped us with many logistics, including calmly guiding us to our berth on the day of our arrival. Brooks is really getting the hand of moving Llyr in tight places!
During our work in Haiti, we anticipate that we won’t have full access to internet, perhaps until we reach Ile-la-Vache. Look for a blog update in a couple of weeks!
