Tinian to SUMBA surveys

 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. 

From Christmas to the new year

Where to start, where to start hmmm... What can I say this week has gone by very fast. After Christmas we had meetings discussing different topics relating to the Christmas Bird Count (CBC). I'm not sure if I had mentioned this before but apparently the CBC started out as just a group of guys going out hunting for birds on Christmas and that became a tradition, then one day they decided hey why don't we just count the birds instead of shooting them. So the CBC has been going on for quite some time. Any who back to the past week, the discussions have just been held in my apartment. It's a very different feeling than that of a classroom and I like it. As my uncle and I were talking about, you can't get away with not doing your homework and you can't get away with not participating. Before the discussion another girl on the trip and I went snorkeling at the same beach we had our Christmas BBQ because the conditions were supposed to be calmer. I was trying to take as many videos as I could so later I could come home and identify the fish. While I was doing this I ran into another group and one of the guys was holding a puffer fish! So I took a picture but then he asked if I wanted to and I was like heck yea! So he got my picture picture with it, but sadly after that point my camera stopped working. My camera had actually broken, somehow water got into an area where it was not supposed to be even though I took special precautions. The TA said that the same thing happened to her roommate last year with the same camera. And not too much longer another girl with the same camera had hers break in the same fashion. Sooo I would say I really don't recommend the Coolpix Nikon underwater camera.
Here is some pictures just before the death of my camera.

After our second discussion on Friday we had another gathering at the same beach where we played volleyball and frisbee. This time though there was an actual pick up game going on and I was very stoked to get in there and play. I was tentative at first, wondering if they would let me play or if I was good enough but then I said what the heck might as well. As I know from our frisbee community in swagstaff we are always encouraging who ever to come play so I figured it was the same here. And it turned out to be such a great experience. I was one of the few girls to play with the guys and I got to meet some people I may need to contact for my research project. It's also the first time I've ever played on a beach which was a challenge. They say that pick up games on the beach happen every Friday so I hope to play as much time will allow me. I think it'll help me keep my sanity here ha.
This is another picture of the place where pick-up frisbee was played.

On Saturday we got introduced to collecting data in the water. Our TA is building on her project from last year of studying sea grass. While she was here last year she looked at the diversity of fish in the short and tall sea grass beds. She was able to come back to look at benthic invertebrates in the sea grass beds as well as getting samples of the sea grass to do genetic analysis. We learned her methods and helped her collect data. Each site had a sea grass bed where we had to place out four 50 meters of lines (transects) to survey. The lines were rolled by 25 meters and anchored to the ground by dog leashes holders. Along those 50 meter lines we would count the number of invertebrates that were half a meter from the line on both sides. Also we used a meter square (quadrat) of PVC pipe at every ten meters of the line to see what the percent cover was (substrate, sea grass, or algae) as well as collecting samples of sea grass from that quadrat. So if you can't tell, it took a lot of time to do this. That day we only did one site for collecting and that took us about 2 hours. Total we had eight sites to collect data from. We did get better at it and were able to knock out three sites the next two days. Leaving one on the fourth day of sampling (New Years Eve). Each night we came back to the apartments and we had to process the samples of sea grass taken from the sites. Ten blades of grass were counted from each quadrat...soooo...10 grass samples x 5 quadrats per transect x 4 transects per site x 8 sites = 1,600 blades of grass were examined for the total length and how much algae covered the surface of the blade.

We worked as a team though and got it done in a timely manner. Here are some pictures from the sites that we sampled from.

 So this is pretty much why I haven't written in the past week, we were pretty exhausted from these long days. But I did get to see some amazing animals along the way. I saw a lion fish, eagle ray, neat starfish, odd sea cucumbers, cute pipe fish, a dragon wrasse and baby fishies it's just too bad I didn't have a camera :[ . So finally it was New Years Eve and we were cleaned up from the morning's sampling. We went out to a popular sushi restaurant where we had good conversations of favorite memories of 2013. And other good bonding conversation.

I had some pretty simple sushi and shared with another girl, but at the end of the dinner our teacher who is taking the picture above (Dr. Benford) had some left overs he was willing to share...but nobody would take. It was a fermented soy bean sushi. So gross.

Everyone was saying "ew no you eat it" so finally I just picked it up and popped it in my mouth. Lets just say that was a bad choice.

It was absolutely repulsive to me, and I started to gag. I ended up going to the bathroom to spit it out in the trash. But hey it was funny and probably something I won't forget and never order again. After our lovely dinner out we played games at the apartments. We played what now is probably a new favorite game called salad bowl. It's a game where you first have everyone write down two or three things on separate pieces of paper, those papers are then thrown into a bowl. There are two teams and the first round you have a set time to try to get your team mates to guess the words so like taboo or catch phrase. After all of the pieces have been used you tally the points of the two teams and put the pieces of paper back into the bowl. The second round is now charades and the third round is where you only get one word to describe what is on the piece of paper. Keep in mind that on the pieces of paper it can have anything on it. For example "Like a fart in the breeze" and  "Corn in your bellybutton" were some that were used. It's a fun game and is always a great source of inside jokes. We played this game for a while then went and hung out by the pool until midnight. Again we talked of life goals and other topics. So I'd say it was a pretty darn good New Years. The first day of the year we had another discussion over the data we collected, which was mainly about different ways to test things and other statistical things. Last night I fell asleep at like 8:30 pm and got pretty much 11 hours of sleep. That leaves today which was pretty casual. We had another discussion over the data we collected for our TA's project. We were also informed that we will be going to Tinian tomorrow through Saturday.

Just like Saipan 101, we are going to have a Tinian 101 to learn about the history of the island. Also in the future we will be traveling to Rota. Since I don't have a camera I'll probably just be taking pictures on my phone. But I will be away again from this blog for the next week because once we come back from Tinian we will be going straight into another bird survey. So hang tight for the next up date :)

Merry Christmas

On Christmas eve we had a very early start of about 5:30am to meet up with others that were going to participate in the Christmas bird count. This bird count happens all over and over many generations. There were about six groups of us assigned to different parts of the island. There was some mix of locals but we took up the other half of the people who participated. My group had Laulau beach as well as the Laulau golf course. Along the way we stayed in the car and drove slow down some roads trying to record every bird that we heard. It felt pretty intense and challenging. The golf course was the best part, we got two golf carts and we got escorted around by the marshal. I must say I always love driving golf carts, reminds me of the times when I would go to Funtastics with my uncle. And I haven't seen a lot of golf courses but I must say this was a really nice one. I kept thinking to myself I wish my uncle were here to play these course. Lots of Japanese golfers along the way. This is probably where we detected the most birds actually. After each group was done with their assigned areas we met back up at a restaurant to give back our data sheets. It was a good time with everyone and we had the rest of the day off. We went to the pool then played some card games with everyone. Still had an early night to bed, though :)

For Christmas I had a card from my mom and uncle to open which was very lovely. And yes Jim there are quiet a few feral cats and I just want to rescue all of them. It was a nice morning being able to skype with both my mom and Marcelo. That afternoon we went to wing beach to have a BBQ which is a big thing on the island apparently, it's the social event. The snorkeling there was absolutely amazing! I can't believe all the different fish that I saw, I've never experienced anything like it. The water was a little rough so I can only imagine when the surf is calmer and the visibility is clearer. Which we are having some bad surf advisories because of a storm that is hitting Japan, so hopefully when that passes we will be able to snorkel at that beach again. It was a very different but great Christmas. I do miss my family though and wish that they could be here enjoying the beaches with me.

Here are some of the pictures from previous days.
This is from when we had our first meeting a Fiesta beach where we played volleyball and frisbee.

I have a feeling that I'll have a lot of color by the time everyone sees me again back on the mainland. My body is being exposed to sunlight it hasn't seen in about a year.
These were from our Saipan 101 class.
Japanese memorial

    Korean memorial just next to it

 This place is a very popular dive spot. It's also pretty awesome to swim in.

 This is where we spent Christmas, Wing beach.

 I've seen so many different species of fish, I'm still in shock of how amazing that snorkeling was and I can't wait to go back. I'm lucky enough to be rooming with the TA who brought a Micronesian reef fish book with pictures to identify the different species. So far I've identified 13 of the ones that I have seen. I have seen more than that but either I didn't get them in a picture or video, or good enough memory to try to identify. I have a feeling that I will be doing a project here that has to do with the marine systems.... 

 This is the same Trocha (top) shells that I found in Australia. Reminded me of all the times on Sunday Island. I brought one  back for my mom, but that one they polished and got to the nacreous part of the shell that makes it white and iridescent. 

Got a little excited...

 Here is the group of us here. There is also a grad student here who was not in the photo but she attends most everything we go to. Our two instructors are in the back row on the right Benford and Nashelly. There will be one more coming for the spring semester and our TA Rosie will be leaving us (front row white shirt).