El Oceanario

Spoiler: my next post is going to be about diving in the Great Barrier Reef. However, I think it’s important to give a bit of back story regarding my diving experience prior to the GBR trip. Hopefully you enjoy the chaos, stress, and emotion to follow in this blog.

April 2014

Normally, I write my blogs in past tense, retelling events how they once happened. However, when I first arrived on the island I was very stressed and wrote to escape some of the anxiety. I feel that these “in the moment” entries provide a more accurate representation of everything. 

Night 1

I feel like crying. When I arrived, no one knew I was coming. Eventually, they figured things out, put me in a room that reminds me of a cheap hostel, and assigned me some duties. I’m working in a lab…a lab. I am NOT a lab person. That’s the reason I didn’t do research for my senior thesis, because labs aren’t my thing. I literally spent the day cleaning test tubes and taking water readings. I keep telling myself: It’s just the first day, things will get better.

Several people have asked if I dive and it sounds like they are going to teach me, which would be really cool. I think I’m just a little overwhelmed. I’m nervous about not being completely fluent in Spanish. I understand a lot, but there are always a couple words I don’t know, which holds me back from full comprehension. My speaking is even worse, though no one seems to mind. They have all agreed I will learn quickly. Glad they are confident. 

Now, that I’ve calmed down a bit, I realize my room is quite nice. There are four rooms that connect to a large common area, three of which are vacant. I inhabit the last, alone; despite the two beds. The common room opens out onto a balcony that overlooks the ocean. The chairs are dusty and only one of the overhead lights work, but it’s over the seating area so I have light to write by. The other two blew out when I flipped the switch; I think it’s been a while since someone was up here. My room is slightly claustrophobic. The only window opens out into the common room, bird or bat scat spot the walls, and the rotating fan doesn’t rotate.

The bathroom is downstairs, there is no toilet seat, the door doesn’t lock, and I have yet to try the shower. Fortunately, these are all things I have experienced as a budget traveler before, so I know I’ll adapt.  

Same Night Thirty Minutes Later 

As I was writing that last bit the supervisor paid me a visit and I feel much better about everything. She is doing her thesis for her MS in marine biology thesis on indigenous and transplanted. Ludovica insists the lab has so many people working in it that I won’t stay there for long. She has me there temporarily while the regular employees help paint the aquarium in preparation for Holy Week. She says she would like to have me help her with her research; I will learn to scuba dive, taking the classes at the aquarium or off the mainland. 

Several Days Later

Each morning I woke up when the edge of the sun was peeking out from the horizon. The birds competed for the honor of being the loudest and geckos chirped to find each other in a world that was unfathomably large. Some days the wind was calm and the sea was a flat pool of tiny ripples. On others a warm breeze inspired the surface to break, sending waves to beat against the dock below my balcony. 

After slipping into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee I headed to the lab to begin my daily routine. The cook did not like me, and never did. She looked at me as though I was vermin, invading the island. I told her my name was Amber or Ámbar in Spanish, like the rock. Yet she insisted on calling me Hambre, which means hungry. Even after several locals corrected her, she refused to change. Fortunately, she took her vacation in the middle of my stay, and the other cooks didn’t have an issue with me.  

Everyone in the lab was surprised by how quickly I picked up the routine: taking samples, using the microscope, measuring out solution, cleaning, and sterilizing. They were shocked at how easy it was for me to understand, despite my Spanish deficiencies. Very few of them had ever left the islands, or even finished high school. While I was spending four years at Uni in and out of labs, they were having babies, working for minimum wage, or helping their parents raise their siblings.

Though the work quickly became monotonous, the basis for it was quite interesting. The aquarium was raising microalgae to feed microorganisms called Rotiferos, which were then fed to fish larva. The algae was grown on Petri-dishes then divided into five test tubes of sterilized ocean water, which were left under constant UV exposure for five days. At this point samples were taken from each and examined under a microscope for health; we looked at numbers of living microalgae and the presence of any infectious agents such as bacteria and viruses. The best sample is divided into five new test tubes and the others were drained into a 250ml flask to sit for three days. If the contents of the flask were healthy, they were transferred to a larger container and the process was repeated until they reached the largest of the tanks, which were a modest two tons. Whenever bacteria or viruses were present the samples were thrown away, which was always upsetting if it happened to one of the larger vats.  

Sometimes we had more work to do, like when the mueros (groupers) and cobias were expecting eggs. Grouper can grow large enough to kill and eat humans, though we aren’t their first choice of cuisine. Bearing that in mind, I was a bit nervous swimming around them with their gaping jaws to look for pregnant females.

The process was simple, in theory. We scared the suspected mothers out into a net, lifted them from the tank into a smaller pool filled with anesthetics, waited for them to become sedated, and flipped them over to stick a tube inside to check for eggs. The pregnant ones transferred to an enclosed tank until they laid their eggs. We collected the eggs, placed them in indoor tanks, and fed them with the end result of the microalgae. Unfortunately, all of the larvae kept dying. These activities gave me a reason to go out to the more remote tanks, which happened to be near my favorite animal.

There were five dolphins in two separate enclosures. Two retired dolphins lived in a tank completely removed from the public, while the other three “show dolphins” were near the center of the aquarium. Now when I say tank, I don’t know if you are getting the right idea about what the tanks looked like. This aquarium was situated on a small island and all of the enclosures were actually in the ocean. There was no type of filtration system, because the waves and tides filtered the water. At certain points of the day the retired dolphins were given full access to the sea, but they chose to remain close to the aquarium and always came back.

Whenever we were out by the farther tank I would sit on the edge and watch them. If the tides were high, I could reach them with my feet. Dolphins love massages, and with all the disappointment that occurred on the island, giving them a good rub down with my feet was what kept me sane. 

After a week on the island my Spanish had improved so much it was astonishing. However, there were still moments when I didn’t understand or couldn’t explain myself. One morning at breakfast, the younger of the two dolphin trainers, a self-centered girl who liked to be the center of attention, walked in and said good morning to several people. I hadn’t seen her walk in so I waited till she had sat down to say good morning. She just stared at me like there was an alien popping out of my forehead, and then made a comment to the group about my delayed good morning. She continued by saying she could have walked to the beach and back before I said good morning and she wasn’t aware that we were saying our good mornings on an individual basis.

At this point she proceeded to say good morning in a mocking tone to each person at the table. At first everyone was laughing but the more she went on the more strained they became. I tried to explain the misunderstanding, but the girl was too busy making fun of me to listen. Later I discovered she was talking about a little boy on Isla Grande, a neighboring island, with Down Syndrome. He has to say hello to each person in turn. That just pissed me off even more; it was one thing to make fun of me, but another to mock a little boy.  

On top of some awkward translation errors, it didn’t take long to realize my direct supervisor was a total bitch. She treated me like her personal slave and had a complete disregard for my safety.  

I don’t know how to SCUBA, which I’m pretty sure I mentioned above. Ludovica knew this, everyone knew it, in fact. Yet, one day she decided to have a mini-class, which I immediately protested to as I had NEVER been scuba diving before. After she assured me that everything would be find because we would stay on land, she rapidly fires through the basics of diving. It’s all in Spanish and I get the gist but most of the important concepts fly right over my head. 

The she looks at me and says, “Vamos a la playa.”

I asked her what she was talking about because she had assured me, we were going to stay on land. She explained that was mini-class 1 and no we will do mini-class 2: how to breathe underwater.

Initially, I was extremely hesitant, but then I rationalized simply learning how to breathe with the tank in the shallows wasn’t actually diving. Right?

A little offshore, I floated around breathing: mini-class 2. Only a couple minutes elapsed before I heard her screaming indignantly at me, “What are you doing? Go deeper!”

I lifted my head up and stared at her for a minute before yelling back that she never told me to go deep and it was probably a bad idea since we only had one tank and you’re NEVER supposed to dive alone.

She waved her hand dismissively and insisted that her cousin would follow me and make sure nothing happened. Right…her cousin who only has snorkel gear…who I just met…who doesn’t speak a lick of English. Ok yeah, that made me feel really safe. 

Thoughts raced through my head. Should I? Shouldn’t I? I took a deep breath; I knew the basics of SCUBA from my friends. I knew other than don’t dive alone, the number one rule in SCUBA was to ascend s-l-o-o-o-o-w-w-l-y. I put on the gear and knew where the snaps were to remove it if need be. I didn’t trust Ludovica or her cousin but I trusted myself.  

She told me to dive to the bottom and swim to a buoy near the dock and back. The deepest part was around thirty feet, a depth I had reached before without a tank. It took a few minutes for my nerves to recede and realize I really did have everything under control.

As I moved along I continued to glance up and assure myself the cousin was still with me. I reached the buoy in no time, did a lap or two around it, then turned back. I looked up, but Ludovica’s cousin was gone. I was alone, alone in the ocean with no idea where I was in relation to the shore.

There was a flare of panic, but then I was calm. I could have rose to the surface by releasing the weights, but I wasn’t sure how quick was too quick. Instead I followed the gradual incline of the floor until I reached a place where I could stand.

Everyone on the shore was freaking out! Ludovica was screaming at her cousin, who was still over by the buoy, while the others were scanning the water, searching for signs of me. I was about ten feet past where I had originally entered the water and stood there waving until one of them spotted me. As the word spread that I was alive, I headed to shore.

Rafa’s (the owner) sister, who co-managed the aquarium, was speaking sternly with Ludovica. The minute she was out of earshot, Ludovica stormed over and started screaming at me in a mixture of Spanish and broken English. “I can’t teach you! You disappeared! What happened you? Something could have happened!” 

Yes, it is completely my fault that you insisted on this training, that your cousin stopped watching me for a second, that you decided you were skilled enough to teach me, that the current took me father than I should have been, that you didn’t teach me how to keep my bearings underwater before throwing me in the ocean, that I didn’t know exactly what I was doing when I have NEVER BEEN SCUBA DIVING IN MY LIFE. Yes, of course, you’re right it’s ALL my fault. 

But instead I was quiet and let her yell, quite certain that she thought I was stupid.

Somehow things improved from that day on. I was never truly happy, but I wasn’t miserable either. I came to terms with the differences in work ethic; so rather than focus my attentions on completing a task, I followed the example of the other employees: work for ten minutes, break for thirty.

Each day after lunch I took a swim around the island to release stress. Occasionally the dolphins would come to the edge of their enclosures and follow me, their clicks and whistles echoed through the warm Caribbean waters. Parrot fish, barracudas, octopuses, and sardines glided about with the current, sometimes I paused my lap to watch them. Then in the evenings I would watch the sunset and remind myself that I was in a beautiful place and should cherish the time I had there.