Eco-Nautical Adventures

And another week has just zoomed by! We've been so busy at the Trust with so many different things.

Eco-Nautical Day Fun

Last Friday, Mark, Melissa and I went to Mosquito pier on the Atlantic side of Vieques to help with the local fishing tournament for the kids! The tournament started at four and lasted until at least seven that evening, with great success! Some of the coolest catches of the day included several moray eels and a huge chapin, or cow fish. The tournament was a complete whirlwind, but what a fun and fabulous event!

The rest of the weekend and beginning of the following week included some routine maintenance for our marine life exhibit, including the addition of a huge venomous scorpion fish, which is in the same family as the invasive lion fish that we find regularly in PR, and a few spiny Caribbean lobsters.

Paddle-Boarding

But Wednesday was definitely the highlight of the past week -- it was the Eco-Nautical Day for our Manta Summer Program . The Manta staff, along with some very kind and generous local adventure experts, spent the day teaching the Manta kids about sustainable and eco-friendly water sports and activities.

The kids learned about snorkeling, sailing, kayaking, paddle boarding (my personal favorite!) along with touring a beautiful sailboat that utilizes solar power along with wind to power the boat! Eco-Nautical day is, of course, completely fun-packed from start to finish, but I think it's such a perfect way of incorporating so many important lessons into one adventurous day. I love seeing the kids learning about and appreciating the beauty and uniqueness that Vieques has to offer in it's stunning beaches, while also reminding the kids that we, as humans, can impact the environment in both positive and negative ways!

It was a gorgeous day for the Manta Eco-Nautical Day

Tomorrow, Mark, Melissa and I will head out to Mosquito Pier to snorkel and restock the Marine Life exhibit (I have my fingers crossed to hopefully see a Manatee!) And next week, our Mantastic Camp starts! I am absolutely falling more and more in love with Vieques every day; I am always busy -- I am meeting new people, practicing my spanish (which still is pitifully elementary in my opinion), swimming in the ocean as much as possible and soaking up the beautiful Puerto Rican sunshine! All in all, I am so thankful to be here and loving every moment!

A Manta friend helping me clean the aquarium tanks after Eco-Nautical Day!

Settling in and Speeding By...

As my third week is coming quickly to an end, I've realized that I can't believe how quickly time flies here in Vieques!

Over the past week or so, I have been busy with all sorts of new activities, adventures and experiences including my first foray into snorkeling in the Atlantic to capture creatures for our marine life exhibit along with finally visiting the bioluminescent bay (Puerto Mosquito) at night. On the note of "Puerto Mosquito", I am sadly finding that my Wisconsinite blood is just as appealing to Puerto Rican mosquitos as it is to the vicious Wisconsin mosquitos that chow on my blood at home.

Playa Grande

In my free time, I have biked and hiked my way to two stunning beaches just outside of Esperanza-- Playa Grande and Playa Negra. Both beaches were uniquely stunning! Playa Grande was beautifully rugged and picturesque, and Playa Negra, although much smaller than Playa Grande, involved a gorgeous half-mile hike in to the secluded beach.

Playa Negra

On a more exciting and significant note, the next round of our "Manta" Summer Programs kicked off this past week at the Trust. It's been a ton of fun getting to work, play and learn with this fabulous group of kids! They have been busy learning about the impact of recycling by visiting the local garbage dump here, swimming in the ocean in order to learn more about marine life and have been actively starting a composting program at the Trust by raking up leaves and creating a compost container. Their compost initiative has inspired me (along with my mom's personal green initiative -- she composts year round for her summer vegetable garden); consequently, I'm hoping to start a compost campaign for the local community to help educate about the ease and benefits gained by the simple act of recycling organic materials.

But hands down, the most fantastic and awe inspiring experience of my internship thus far was seeing the bioluminescent bay on Tuesday night. Around 8 pm, Mark, Melissa (my fellow intern) and I loaded onto a school bus tour and made our way down the rough, bumpy road to Puerto Mosquito; we joined a biobay tour group in order to collect a specimen sample of the dinoflagellate, which is the organism that is responsible for the fluorescent nature of the bay. As a chemist, I found it fascinating that the fluorescence of these single cell organisms occurs due to an interaction of a protein and an enzyme. When the organism is moved or disturbed, the combination of the protein and enzyme helps facilitate a chemical reaction causing the teensy-tiny dinoflagellate to glow!

As we glided smoothly across the dark water, my jaw dropped as as I watched the glowing wake of our boat drifting behind us -- I absolutely could not believe how beautiful and ethereal the bay looked; words and descriptions do not give adequate justice to the inexplicable beauty and wildness of the whole experience. Watching the water glow and glimmer, I was reminded of the Disney movie "Peter Pan", where Tinkerbell, a small fairy, zips and flies around leaving a trail of glimmering pixie dust in her wake.

Pyrodinium bahamense are the micro-organisms responsible for the
fluorescence of the biobay in Vieques.

Even though I am a chemistry major who has a limited background in biology, I have never experienced anything in nature that has rivaled or influenced me quite as much as my night on the biobay; the whole evening makes me want to delve deeper into natural biology where I can hopefully apply my background knowledge of chemistry! Before I get overly sentimental and even more long winded about my experience, I will sum everything up by saying that the bioluminescent bay is definitely one of the most magnificent experiences that our world has to offer.

Such an amazing past week, and the best part is there are many more adventures to come! With our upcoming fishing tournament, more snorkeling to restock the marine life exhibit and more Manta activities and explorations, I am up looking forward to the upcoming days ahead!

-Abby

The Beginning!

Hello and welcome to my summer blog!

My name is Abby, and I am a 20 year old Wellesley College student who is interning at the Vieques Conservation and Historical Trust for 10 weeks over this summer! I absolutely cannot believe how quickly my first week and a half here have absolutely flown by.


This spring, when I first discovered that I would have the opportunity to intern at the Trust for the summer, I was... well let's just say that "being beyond excited" didn't quite sum up my enthusiasm. In the midst of my semester, I began imagining what my summer would look like. I soon realized that I really had no idea and no way of knowing how I would like and adjust to such a new environment, but I set two goals for myself: I knew that wanted to do something that pushed me outside of my comfort zone, and I wanted to learn as much as possible.

Before I knew it, I had finished my sophomore year as a chemistry major, had spent several weeks at home in Wisconsin relaxing and was on a teensy little puddle jumper plane from San Juan to Vieques; as we flew over the Caribbean Sea, I had to keep pinching myself in order to remember that this, indeed, was real life, and I was actually about to spend 10 weeks in this amazingly beautiful place where both dogs, chickens and horses calmly and casually roam the streets.

It's always sunny and always gorgeous-- I love all of the sailboats!

Needless to say, I literally hit the ground running, both literally and metaphorically (nearly passing out from the heat on my first few runs here-- my internal "Wisconsin heater" is still transitioning to an AC unit).

Within my first week, I met all of the fabulous staff at the Trust who have been extremely patient and kind as I 1) practice my spanish and 2) learn the ropes of my job, went to see the fantastic bioluminescent bay and learned how to monitor the water quality for a USGS and EPA scientific study, got to be a part of the Mini-Manta Summer Program, working with the kids as we explored the bay and a local river,  and have explored all the nooks and crannies of Esperanza, both above and below the gorgeous sea! I have experienced the glory that is Belly-Buttons Thursday night Mexican night (there was so much food there it made my starving-college-student-stomach sing), and have found that mangos and papayas here are most likely the two most delicious fruits I have ever eaten in my entire 20 years of being.

Between snorkeling to catch fish for our aquarium at the Trust and swimming, sailing, kayaking and snorkeling with the Mini-Manta kids on "Eco-nautical day", I've been busy and loving my new niche in Vieques; I am learning endlessly about everything ranging from how to clean and maintain an aquarium to remembering my elementary high school spanish (¡Yo hablo un poquito de español, pero no mucho!)

So far, my adventure has started off in the best way I could have ever hoped for, and I am so genuinely excited for the weeks that are ahead of me!

One of the first pictures I took, looking down the Malecon (the main street).