So the last time I posted I believe we were on our way to Tinian. We left early in the morning and we split up into two groups. Each person was weighed with their backpack and then assigned their seat because this was our ride :P I was so excited/scared a little bit to be riding in these planes. And guess who got the copilot seat :D
No smoking obviously.
It was really quite the experience being in that small of a plane. My adrenaline was defiantly pumping during take off and landing. It was also interesting to feel the plane move with the different gusts of wind. But our pilot Bobby made surprisingly smooth landings to my relief. I thought we were going to be bouncing around in these tiny planes. This is the view as we were leaving Saipan.
This is the view of Tinian, but what is special about these landing strips is that the two atomic bombs were launched from them.
Here are some pictures from when we arrived and we took a tour of the island seeing various things such as Japanese temples and other places.
These are on Saipan as well but aren't these huuuuge!
The towers in the background are "the voice of America". It's broadcasting popular songs from America to China and Japan.
There are two bomb pits like this that we visited, this is where the bombs were assembled and loaded onto the planes.
We also visited an old Japanese power plant which had a slight eerie feeling to it.
Lots of orb weavers around.
We also visited a blow hole site which was right next to where live mortars were.
Found a reaaaaalllly cute limpet :D
Our two days in Tinian came to an end and we took the same type of plane out with the same pilot!
After we came back we got a day off so we went to various beaches checking out some sweet snorkeling spots. Where I actually saw a live cowrie! I'm a nerd and it's probably not that exciting to everyone else but me haha. Unfortunately I didn't have my underwater camera then so I don't have any pictures of it.
After our day off we headed straight into bird surveys. Our main focus was to try and detect as many reed warblers. Unfortunately we had a rough start to our surveys we had some rain and high winds. After those two days we spent some sweaty days out in the jungle listening for birds. Lots of wasp stings and smelly socks but we made it through. So we've had some time to go out and help Rosie out with the rest of her project because she would be leaving soon. We also got a chance to help out Jill (grad student) with her project by trying to find certain bird nests.
These are some pictures from when I did get my camera (THANKS MOM!!!!) The camera takes great pictures and it does seem sturdy :)
When we were out some of the fish are very bold and not afraid, probably because they are fed by divers...
Poofy starfish
Feather duster worm
Really freaky looking sea cucumber
One day we did get to Managaha which is a little island just off of Saipan were wedge-tailed shearwaters. These birds were in trouble not to long ago because people visiting the island were stepping on nesting areas unknowingly. But with the help of the company that owns the snack place on the island they help bring back the population by fencing off some areas. The birds are migratory so we didn't see them on this trip but will hopefully later in the semester.
This is the view of Saipan from Managaha.
This is from a couple of days ago to set up cocoanut crab traps so we will be able to spot later in the night.
This is from the morning swim in Lau lau bay.
Crown of thorns starfish
After the swim we had some great falafel for lunch.
And last night we were able to see some cocoanut crabs, they were just babies but they were still really big compared to any crabs I've ever seen. I don't have the pictures right now but I will put them up on a later post. It was interesting searching around in the dark in the jungle but everything went well. Southern accents seemed to be popular when talking to the little hermit crabs while we were measuring them along with the few cocoanut crabs. Once again there are plans to go to the Rota this upcoming weekend but we will see if things work out this time to go. It is now the spring semester so our individual projects will be starting to take off. With that our TA has left us :'( but we will be getting a new student and she'll be my new roommate.
