A final goodbye to Honduras, field work, and my home for the last three months

     Well, as mentioned in the last post, this post will be my final one pertaining to my crazy adventures in Honduras. Tomorrow I leave for CA and the day after that for WA, so this may be my last post for quite some time. If by chance in my crazy life, I happen to run across some story or even interesting enough to write about, I'll be sure to let you know about it. Anyway onto the actual post.
      My time here in Honduras has had many ups along with more than a few downs and has taught me not only what real field work is really like, but much about the nature of people, culture, and faith. Let's begin with research. Field work, as anyone who has actually done it will tell you, can be one of the most rewarding and fun aspects of being a scientist. Unfortunately it can also be one of the most aggravating, nail-biting experience in which everything that can go wrong does so spectacularly an you are left wondering at night why anyone in their right mind would let you step foot outside the lab :). Fortunately, my field work has, on the whole, been more of the former than the latter, but it has not been wholly without its difficulties. I remember at one point, near the beginning, we were having a lot of trouble finding turtles and were already two weeks in with only a handful of turtles. During that time I also found out that because of our inability to find turtles outside the marine park, I would be unable to attach time depth recorders and radio tags to any turtles, which was a large component of my study. Needless to say, it was a rough couple of weeks, but gradually things began to turn around as we started to get an idea of the proper places to look for turtles.
     Undoubtedly the best part of my research this summer, that I'm sure I will reflect fondly many years from now, is the ridiculous amount of diving I got to do. Everything about diving is incredible. The water, the equipment, being several stories under the sea yet breathing, seeing incredible creatures you've only ever heard about or seen on planet earth; yeah diving is pretty incredible. The turtles as well were (And are) incredible. Spending 15-30 min every day just staring at these incredible creatures (For a total of ~16.5 hours over the entire three months) gave me a deeper appreciation for these gentle reptiles. Sure, I had spent countless hours reading about turtles before I got to Honduras, but simple head knowledge pales in comparison to actually observing these creatures in the wild, seeing how they live, and observing how their very being glorifies the Creator.        In addition to swimming with turtles I spent a fair amount of time talking and working with people, some of which were awesome and helpful, and others not so much. As weird as it sounds, my job is really as much about communication as it is about science, for unless you can get people on board with your project and convince them that it is actually worthwhile, your research will never get off the ground. During my time down here I talked to divers, dive shop owners, numerous NGO representatives, Marine Park volunteers, boat captains, village people, tourists, and a whole plethora of other assorted people I can't remember. Sometimes dealing with all these people all the time was a pain, other times a delight (I made a few friends down here I will attempt to keep in touch with after I'm gone), but always a crucial part of my research.
     This Friday I gave a presentation summarizing the key findings of my research (Which you'll have to wait for a possible future post to find out, or simple talk to me in person). Finally, after 3 very long months in which I did 138 dives and spent over 100 hours underwater, I actually had reliable, meaningful data I could show to people who were interested (or at least appeared to be interested) in my work. It was a long meeting (4 hours when it should have been 1) but a good presentation and that night I slept soundly.
     As I take off on a plane bound for home in a few hours (and yes this post was not finished last night as planned) I want to leave you with an exhortation based off my experiences in Honduras. Treasure the world God has given us, and take care of it as the truly incredible gift that it is. It is not enough to simply assume it will take care of itself, that things will continue always as they have in the past,  or some "conservation specialist" will take care of the environment for you. I have seen firsthand in Honduras what happens when environmental stewardship is neglected and forgotten amongst all the other "more important" concerns of life. The results are disastrous and create a world that harms the creatures that call it home, and cannot glorify God in the way it was intended. And before you start ragging on the Hondurans for the deplorable state of their polluted beaches and rivers, you must realize this is not merely a Honduran or Central American problem, but a global one. Yes the symptoms of the sickness may be more visible in this part of the world, but the disease of environmental misuse and wastage are just as alive in the US as Central America. We simply hide it better. All one need do is visit any major city in America (Or minor one for that matter), or the poorer section of town (Environmental degradation is often the worst, I have found, for people who either do not have the money or the necessary knowledge (i.e. environmental education) to take care of the environment), if they want to contest my claim. I do not make these disparaging comments with the purpose of making my readers angry or despondent. No, instead, like any good doctor, I mention the disease so that the patient can hear about the possible treatment. Rather than despair for the state of the natural world, of which I have a deep abiding love, I choose to maintain an optimistic (Though somewhat tempered by reality) view of the environment, for God has not called us to a spirit of despair but of hope. I have done my best this summer to work towards that eventual world in the end times when man, beast, and the environment will exist in perfect relationship giving glory to an infinite loving God, and I can only trust that God has somehow used my feeble efforts to bring him glory.

Adios,

Christian

Recollections and memories

      Well I have but one week left till I leave Honduras bound for home. By the time I leave I will have completed 140 dives, ID'd 66+ turtles, spent 17 hours staring at turtles underwater, and eaten more than enough baleadas, macaroni, and peanut butter to last a lifetime. Island life certainly has it's upsides (i.e. diving, easy access to beach, incredible fruit), but after a while monotony begins to set in, with every day resembling the last and nothing to do when you're not diving. Needless to say, I am very happy to go home, and I will bring back with me many memories and stories (If anything can go wrong in research it will go wrong) that probably should end up in a book someday. I have most definitely come away from this summer having a substantially deeper appreciation for the underwater creation. So much life, lying just beneath the waves, that most of don't even realize exists. In addition to the memories, I also bring back a whole assortment of random photos from my adventures on the island to astound and astonish anyone that cares to look at them. For your enjoyment, I have posted several of these pictures below (Some of these photos are from my fellow research Dustin Baumbach).

P.S. I will put up a final post at the end of next week giving a more substantial reflection of my time here, my research, the environment, and Honduras in general.

Me during a particularly wet morning on the way out to a dive

 A sea cucumber

 Brain coral

 Sea anemone

 Large Moray eel

 Seed pods from mangrove trees

 Vase sponge

 Brain Sponge

 Puffer fish

 Yellowline Arrow Crab

 Me in my diving regalia (And yeah I look a tad bit ridiculous)

 Christmas tree worm

 Channel Crab (About the size of my backpack)

 Two brittle stars in a vase sponge

Angelfish beside a brown tube sponge

The incredible individuality and character of creation

     One of the most marvelous things I have been pondering recently is the sheer individuality and variety displayed in creation. I will use the hawksbill sea turtle as an example (hm, I wonder why) When the average person looks at a sea turtle, they think "hm that is a beautiful animal, I do believe it is a turtle" and if by chance they happen to know their sea turtle species (Yeah!) their thought process may be along the lines of "oh look it's a turtle and oh, I see it happens to have a curvy beak like a hawk and a serated shell. I bet it's a hawksbill (Don't I feel so scientific)". If, however, you make a daily job out of staring sea turtles (And particularly hawksbills) underwater for extended times (13 hours, 8 minutes, and 58 seconds total), you start to notice other amazing things. Every sea turtle you will ever see (Which, yes I realize may not be very many for those of you reading from the Midwest), is a unique individual that is entirely distinct from every other turtle out there (even individuals of the same species). Scratches on the carapace, unique birthmarks on the face, the space between individual facial scutes (Large scales), anatomical proportions. All these and more distinguish every living turtle from another. One of the most telltale marks that makes identification of hawksbill individuals much faster is the pattern of coloration on the beak. Similar to the dark spot coloration on the labrum (Lip) of wasps, (And yeah I'm a nerd), every hawksbill has a unique pattern of dark coloration on their beak that acts as a sort of name tag for the turtle. Don't believe? Take a look at the following 3 pictures and tell me I'm wrong. Think of it as a count the differences game. The differences are staggering. Like humans, every turtle has it's own face and (Potentially) personality to go along with it. So much so that I can use a digital program (I3s pattern) to distinguish between turtles via the scute pattern.

(And yes in case your wondering I have spent way too long looking at turtle faces)

The real crazy question is why? Why did God not create turtles all with the same scutes? It surely would have been simpler and easier? Is their some sort of adaptive advantage to these patterns as in the wasps (i.e. indicates a level of social status)? Not as far as I can see, but who know? My theory is God made every turtle with it's own scutes and unique characteristics simply because he wanted to. To show his love, his power, and infinite mind, he lavished his creativity on all His creatures. 

Psalm 104:24

"O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great."

A sense of place

      Often when I am away from home (And by home here I mean my home in Washington State) I reflect on what it means to have a sense of place, that is an innate longing, knowledge, and love of one place. Often this sense of place is attached to where you grow up. Sometimes it is found in a place where you spent some of the most memorable days, weeks, months, or years of your life. I personally have experienced this sense of place in only a few places. First and foremost my home in Port Orchard, WA. There is something entirely soothing about being home that is directly tied to both the land and the people on it. Here amidst the verdant evergreens, fresh air, and drizzling rain my entire person is at ease. I know these woods, I recognize these trees. I can climb into the treehouse in the forested gorge out front and remember the many days I spend in the woods reading a book or playing with my siblings. Life here makes since. Second there is Whidbey Island, also in Washington state. It is here that my love of God's Creation truly came alive and my desire to study and care for it flourished under the tutelage of the teachers at Pacific Rim Institute. It is an island I gladly called home for a month and would do so again in a heartbeat. It is where I saw my first Orca pod plunge through the water, sun shining off their massive dorsal fins. Third there is the Au Sable campus in Northern MI. Ah the memories I made there, the incredible conversations I had there with people of like mind and faith, the everyday encounters with nature that my heart earnestly aches for. In Northern MI (Mancelona to be precise) I encountered true tranquility. A rest away from the modern world, to simply sit in a hammock and read Wendell Berry while an Eastern Phoebe fed its chicks in its nest by the pond, or rest in a boat and lazily fish while the stars come out. Pure bliss. It is here that I slept under the milky way and watched the Pleiades meteors roar overhead, lighting up the sky with their fury. It is here where I fell in love with forested paths and seeing the beauty in the seemingly mundane.
      Because I have experienced a true sense of place, however, when I am gone from those places,when I am separated from those places my dad would call "God's beauty spots" , I feel the ache of homesickness. Other places I visit, like the Bay Islands of Honduras, the deserts of California, and the forested hills of Pennsylvania may be truly amazing and beautiful in their own way, but they are not home. Home, as the old saying goes, is where the heart is, and mine is held captive by the mountains, forests, and seas (And yeah that was a bit mushy sounding and not entirely accurate, but it is true). The more I look around, however, the more I find that many people never develop this sense of place. In the helter-skelter rapidity of modern life, most people are simply to busy with their education, working on their career, or occupied by the digital world, to take the time to develop a sense of place. Rather than taking the time to understand the many facets and aspects of part of God's world, we prefer the far simpler task of knowing bits and pieces of the world (whether through travel or the internet) and never truly know a place for what it is (Note: do not attempt to treat this sentence as a polemic against traveling. If done properly traveling is a truly wonderful thing that can teach you much about God's world and people).Often in my travels (WA, OH, MI, CA, Honduras) I meet many people flitting from place to place with no sense of belonging, adrift on the winds of chance as it were, with no real home, no salvation in Christ, and no goal in life. Such people make me sad. Why is there this lack of placeness in people's lives (And yeah I totally just made that word up)? Is this the result of sin's curse upon mankind, or is it simply that some people are wired differently than others?
     Anyway, this has been a brief discourse on a subject that is very dear to my heart and directly connected to environmental issues and conservation. If we do not know the land and nature in which we live, how can we even begin to care for it properly? I think often about issues of place and purpose and I highly recommend if you are interested in additional discussion about this and other issues to read a collection of essays by the Brilliant agrarian, Wendell Berry entitled The Art of the Commonplace. To finish off this post I leave you a poem from Berry's Timbered choir which aptly, I believe, describes our need for a sense of place.

"Coming to the woods edge
on my Sunday morning walk,
I stand resting a moment beside
a ragged half-dead wild plum
in bloom, its perfume
a moment enclosing me,
and standing side by side
with the old broken blooming tree,
I almost understand,
I almost recognize as a friend
the great impertinence of beauty,
even to the fallen, without reason
sweetening the air
                                  I walk on,
distracted by a letter accusing me
of distraction, which distracts me
only from the hundred things
that would otherwise distract me
from this whiteness, lightness,
sweetness in the air. The mind
is broken by the thousand
calling voices it is always too late
to answer, and that is why it yearns
for some hard task, lifelong, longer
than life, to concentrate it
and make it whole.
But where is the all-welcoming,
all-consecrating Sabbath
that would do the same? Where
the quietness of the heart
and the eye's clarity
that would be a friend's reply
to the white-blossoming plum tree?"

-Wendell Berry in A Timbered Choir

Sincerely,

Christian Hayes

P.S. I understand if you think a lot of this particular post is somewhat rambling. It was intended to be. Feel free to shoot questions at me via posting, FB, or email. Always interested in discussing this topic.

A beautiful tropical palmate leaf that reminded me of the leaves of buckeye trees in Ohio

Random post with pictures and such

      This week progressed as normal with much diving, observing of turtles, data analysis, and whatnot. I have been on 90 dives since being down here and will probably go on and do another 50 or so before I leave, so at times I get a bit tired of diving, but the information is, I believe well worth the effort, and it truly is a beautiful way to spend my time here. The other day I went on a shore dive to Blue Channel (one of the more popular dive sites in the West End that forms a shallow channel through the coral full of crannies for organisms to hide in) and saw a whole myriad of sea creatures buried in the sand and tucked away in the coral. Rather than attempt to describe the beautiful creatures I saw. I'll simply post a few pictures and videos here for your perusal. Enjoy!

Note: I apologize for the randomness and disjointed nature of this post. Hopefully my next post will be more organized.

 A spiny lobster underneath a small wreck

The Aforementioned small boat wreck

A live conch

A medium sized grouper chillin at the bottom (actually taken on a different dive but I figured I would put it in)

A remarkable but haunting poem

   

     I read this poem today and the words struck to the core of what it means to hate and love. May we always choose to be people of love rather than hate.

Hate has no world.

The people of hate must try

to possess the world of love,

for it is the only world;

it is Heaven and Earth..

But as lonely, eager hate

possesses it, it disappears;

it never did exist,

and hate must seek another

world that love has made.

-Wendell Berry in a Timbered Choir

A brief explanation about the purpose of my research

     I realized today that despite the numerous posts I have put on this blog, I have been pretty terrible about actually explaining what in the world I am hoping to accomplish during my time down here in Roatan, Honduras. Despite what it may appear, most of my days are not full of gibbering monkeys, cawing macaws, and crazy food. Rather I spend most of my time diving, getting ready to dive, organizing data collected from diving, and scheduling dives for the next week. The goal of my research in Roatan (Which I somehow utterly failed to mention at the start of this job) is to determine the effects (if any) of scuba diving on hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) behavior. Scuba diving has been expanding rapidly in the Caribbean over the last 64 years, but little research is being done to determine how this increase in diving is effecting large marine organisms that divers interact with. During the brief 2.5 months I am down here, I am conducting daily dives to observe hawksbills both in the presence and absence of divers to determine if the substantial amount of diving that occurs off this island (The entire island is ringed by a beautiful fringing reef) is negatively effecting turtle behavior. I am working with ProTECTOR, an NGO set up by my advisor, Dr. Stephen Dunbar, for the protection, and conservation of turtles in Honduras, and the Roatan Marine Park, a local NGO here on the island. I won't go into all the specifics of my research here, but suffice to say I am doing a lot of diving and staring at sea turtles while writing underwater. Typically I spend about 4 hours a day moving equipment, 2 hours a day diving, and the rest of the day analyzing data and eating food. Needless to say it is quite a tiring job but I believe the results will be worth it. From the data I am collecting here, I hope to create guidelines for how scuba divers should interact with turtles in Honduras and marine protected areas around the world. Additionally I plan to publish my work in a peer reviewed journal to make my research available worldwide. My goal, personally, is to graduate from Loma Linda University this coming Spring with a Masters of Science in Biology and continue following my passion  for God's world and conservation wherever God may lead me. If that means going on to get a doctorate then so be it. I'm open to suggestions (anyone?).
       Now for you people that don't really read these posts and just want to see some fun pictures here you go (I have thrown a few random ones at the end that have absolutely nothing to do with research, just for your enjoyment). In addition to the diving and random pictures, I have also put in some pictures from our recent tagging and release of three turtles (2 hawksbills and 1 green) that were rescued from a local restaurant and let free in the bay (I apologize for not donating an entire post to the occasion but at this point I simply don't feel like it. For more info on the event take a look at the protector facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/ProTECTOR/199247040225339)


Enjoy,
Christian Hayes

 Me in full scuba gear

 Hawksbill framed by brain coral

 The research team doing habitat transects

 Striped (Basiliscus vittatus) (Note: not the mythological snake that turns you to stone) outside our lodge

 Banana fritters I made (I told you there would be some random pics)

Green Anemone (anyone care to ID?)

 Juvenile hawksbill we rescued, tagged, and released

 Taking carapace samples from juvenile hawksbill to test for heavy metals

 Juvenile hawksbill mugshot

 Tag we put on a juvenile hawksbill we rescued (Note the red around the tag is iodine, to prevent inflection and not blood)

 Releasing a juvenile sea turtle we rescued

Dustin and I measuring a green turtle we rescued

Gumbalimba time

       Well today I took a break from diving for turtles (A never ending task it seems) and instead went zip-lining down the island at Gumbalimba park. We started at the top of the island from where you can see the shore on both sides (it's a rather narrow island shaped like a chili pepper) and made our way down from platform to platform all the way down to the water (I sort of wished it had dropped us directly in the ocean but for fairly obvious reasons it did not) at speeds ranging from 9-35 mph. Needless to say it was quite exhilarating. After the ridiculous amount of diving I have done already, however, it really wasn't all that scary. :) Anyway all along the route we saw beautiful iguanas (Two species: the green and black), a few leaf cutter ants, and the occasional spider. Upon reaching the bottom, we followed the tour guide (And yes on this particular day I was a bonifide tourist, albeit one with a more comprehensive understanding of the island and its biota than the typical tourist), into a rather extensive mounted insect collection from around the world, and a pirate cave hosting a scattering of assorted pirate and Mayan memorabilia (which may or may not be at all related to the island). Upon leaving the cave we journeyed past the iguana nest where the park rangers were feeding island iguanas lettuce and bananas. These creatures are truly marvelous, but rather than attempt to describe them I'll simply let you peruse the pictures below. After our brief iguana stop we journeyed over a rickety suspension bridge (which of course had to be called the "pirate bridge" for no discernible reason) and on to the birds. We were greeted by a park employee and invited to take pictures with a beautiful (and very well trained) military macaw (Ara militaris) who posed obediently on our shoulders and occasionly cawed very loudly in our ears. We also saw several vibrant scarlet macaws and a few of the local cowbirds lurking about (the equivalent of our North American Crow). We journeyed on from the birds to meet the capuchin monkeys (Note: they are not native to the island), and boy were they adorable. We probably spent 10-15 minutes just letting them run around and over us, munching on sunflower seeds from the keepers hands. They would grab just about anything you had that was shiny, including your water bottle, hair, sunglasses, and camera, and would leap several feet from person to person. Alas, as with most awesome things, we eventually had to leave. On the way out we saw a few Agoutis (probably the widespread Central American Dasyprocta punctata rather than the endangered Dasyprocta ruatanica that is endemic to the island), and passed by the iguanas again for one last goodbye, then headed home. As we headed back to West End over the crest of the island we could look down  either side and see the Caribbean waves lapping peacefully at the shore. I have posted a smattering of pictures from the experience below for your perusal.

 Some of Jimmy's (A friend of ours on the island) family who we went with us

 The turtle team about to start the descent

 A beautiful spide (Any entomologists want to take a shot at IDing it?)

Close up of same spider

 The Roatan Spiny Tailed Iguana (Ctenosaura oedirhina) an endangered species

Close up of the spiny tail (hence the name) 

 Leaf cutter ants coming down a tree (look closely)

 The zipline through the canopy

 Large male Iguana (not the spiny tailed variety)

 Weird historic pirate cutlass/pistol weapon 

 Green iguana

 Scarlet Macaw (Ara macao)

 Me with the Military Macaw (Ara militaris)

 The Aquoti

 Some Capuchin monkeys on Dustin

 Some Capuchin monkeys on me

 An inquisitive Capuchin

Monkey Mug shot