COCONUTS

I kid you not, I just cracked open a young coconut and drank its juice.

I sat on the waterfront outside the Gump station after wrangling a green coconut off its tree, trying to smack it open with a cleaver. At some point, I realized that the cleaver wasnt going to work. A conveinantly shaped rock was nearby and I started bashing that sucker like there was no tomorrow. It was a satisfying moment pouring the juice out, bringing it inside, and proving that I am, indeed, a badass.

I'm in Moorea.

The ride on the ferry was short and full of people from the class who crowded the upper decks. We probably were the only ones speaking English and jabbering along as we snapped hundreds of pictures of the same slightly-bigger-each-time island. The lab picked us up with their trucks, bringing us to the station. It's hard to explain the station- It's on a piece of land that would make many of the high-class resorts her jealous. The lab and dorms are on a clearing that goes into the ocean. It's surrounded by trees (a pomelo, many of the aforementioned coconuts, papaya, and hibiscus) and is literally on Cook's bay, with the other side rising ahead of us.

Various views from around the station.

After the necessary unpacking (throwing clothes into cabinents, dumping other supplies on my desk), I did the obvious thing and jumped into the water. I'm not the greatest snorkler, but the water was calm and I got to see some pretty awesome things. Like iridescant blue fish and a tiny white, pebble-textured eel. Good times. After an hour of that, I left the water, took a shower, patched together my net, and went bug hunting. Pickings were pretty slim, but this was only looking at the things close to the station where the natural vegetation has been pretty devestated by invasive plants and grasses. I did find a rather rambunctious cricket, a slender little mantis, and your standard click beetle. But mostly it felt good to just be swinging my oversized net and tromping around in the tropics.

Later in the evening we had a welcome orientation where the professors brought us beer (Hinano, the local brand, and the drinking age is 18 here) and we watched a presentation about station technicalities. We returned to the station for a meal that consisted of traditional fare, like Poisson Cru (raw fish) and sliced guava. I collapsed in bed shortly afterwards because I was part of the small contingent of people going to the market at six in the morning the next day to get food for our cooking nights. We're doing things co-op style here for dinners- groups of 3 cook for all 22 students. I woke up fairly easily and rambled through the market, looking at the rather dismal display of fruits and vegetables. It's weird- here everyone has their own miniature farm. Families all have their coconut, pineapple, guava, mango, breadfruit, and taro plots, so these local staples aren't sold in the markets. They are sold at these awesome looking roadside stands (people basically set up tables at the front of their driveways), but we didn't stop at these because of a pre-existing station account at the grocery store. Which only has crappy apples and exorbitantly expensive zucchinis. Discouraging as it was, we later found out that the station will be receiving regular bread, fruit/vegetable, and fish deliveries from the families of the station staff. HOORAH BREADFRUIT (which is really like saying “Hoorah potatos”, but damnit, it's still exotic).

A truckload of unloaded groceries later, the class rushed through breakfast and sandwich making before we began the day's activities. Basically, the class spent four hours touring around the entirety of Moorea, making various stops along the way, mostly as a way to compare the various habitats. This next week or so is supposed to be a time for constant class trips to help us get ideas for our projects. First we saw a portion of Cook's bay (where we are staying) and then Opunahu (the next bay over) which is much more pristine and untouched. And then the remains of a Marae, the ancient raised platforms that acted as temples to ancient Mooreans, followed by a mangrove patch. The day ended with snorkeling at the public Temae beach which is renown for its underwater sight-seeing.

The water was rougher than I was used to, but very clear and indeed full of life. I got plenty nervous when the corals started reaching higher towards us, all of them stuck with the biggest black sea urchins I've ever seen. It made me a little anxious, especially when swimming just a foot above them, or right inbetween two coral heads. Perhaps a little earlier than every one else, I turned back for shore. Hey, I'm not a water person.

But I was rewarded for my sucky water adventuring skills. Standing on the sand, you can see where the lagoon, the reef, and the deeper water beyond the reef met. And right at that boundary, on the deeper side, I saw a whale. It was humpback whale and it was doing that sidelong one-flipper-up waving thing on both sides before doing a sort of semi-breach. It was awesome, and I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't wussed out of the full snorkeling hour. So there. Hah.

We returned back to the lab where we basically milled about til dinner doing Statistics homework and emailing, and generally being lazy. The days start early here and some people aren't quite used to that. Personally, for me, it's 930 at night right now and I'm plenty exhausted, so this post ends HERE.