Wednesday, August 12

Diving

Bid Kevin farewell as I started the day at the dive shop. He plans to do some shopping and entertain himself around town before getting on the ferry and making his way to St. Thomas. Hopefully he'll find some nice things for his family and friends!

The south shore is calm again! There must be some tropical waves or depressions calming things down far away. We stopped at Tektite North and Booby Rock. What a treasure! There was a Caribbean Reef Octopus, a Nurse shark (I didn't see the shark!), trumpet fish, file fish, Sponge Brittle Star, Christmas Tree worms, plenty of fire coral (not fun to touch), and plenty of sea fans, sponges, and hard corals. I could easily spend several hours comparing the underwater world of each dive to the reef identification books. I wonder how many species of different fish and creatures I've encountered; I'll settle for saying quite a few. Working at the shop and boat wrapped up around 1pm. I hauled myself back up the hill and to the park. The park is my main job here, so despite the fun and work that can be had at the dive shop, I'm not going to easily forget the whole reason I'm on the island, which is to work at the park. It doesn't matter where I've been in life, I seem to be magnetized to burning the candle at both ends; after a pretty full morning at the shop, I put in eight more hours at the park.

Still no package from home, yet. I will keep an eye on the mail. I would have thought a priority flat rate mail envelope would have arrived sooner!

Focus Group time! I went down the hill to the visitor's center and around mongoose junction to ask several visitors about keeping our historical and cultural artifacts preserved by not touching them, taking them, or moving them around sites in the park. If you were told “do not touch!” what's your reaction? I like the whole “take only pictures, leave only bubbles” phrase that is part of the PADI Aware program. For the national parks, I've found “observe but do not touch” on materials that are promoting Leave No Trace principles in the parks. The study was pretty useful; most people agree that if the sign warned them not to touch stuff, they'd be more likely to leave things alone. Those people that won't read the sign in the first place will likely do what they were going to do anyway. Hopefully though, we can reduce the number of people touching and disturbing cultural and historical artifacts, while increasing their awareness of potential hazards and risks.

Tomorrow, I'm finally going to dive the Wreck of the Rhone! It's a wreck in the British Virgin Islands, and I had better bring my passport. I've been told about ten times today to make sure I have my passport tomorrow. You better believe I won't forget it! I do generally carry it with me everywhere I go, anyway- so forgetting it should not be an issue...knock on wood! The Rhone has a neat history and there are plenty of directions I could point you for a version of the same story. Here's my version, in a nutshell: Long time ago, mail ship for the British sunk during a Hurricane. Another tragic story of the “unsinkable” ship, sinking. Passengers from another vessel had boarded the Rhone, thinking they'd be safer. When all was said and done, both ships wound up on the bottom. The Rhone lost an unknown number of lives (with the transfer of passengers, it is hard to say how many were really on board during the sinking). Now, the Rhone rests in sand and has become home to many reef fish and creatures. The popular dive site is just off Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands. To dive the wreck, one must clear Her Majesty's customs and immigration. Coming from St. John, it means a stop at West End, Tortola.

I'm watching the weather and I've heard rumors that there are some tropical storms headed this way by early next week. I'm not sure if that means a longer than usual rain storm or if we are really going to get hit with some serious rain. I see the flash flood watch and flood watch watch cautions from the weather channel on my iphone. It could mean just enough rain to fill the cistern. It may also mean nasty thunderstorms and sustained high winds. I'll stay posted to the weather channel and other sites.