The Bahamas
I realize since my last post, so much has changed in my life. I'm upset with myself for not maintaining any sort of semblance with my blog. I'm working on it.
I'm in school, full time and about one year away from graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. This past week, I was in the Bahama's for an ecology course. The purpose of this ecology course is to give me field training.
What did I learn from my trip in the Bahamas? I'm in the right degree track.
For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a marine biologist. It has always seemed right out of my grasp. Odd since I grew up on the coast most of my life and even parts of my adult life. When we finally made it to Georgia, I thought I had it in the bag.
The bad news: Columbus State University does not offer a degree in Marine Biology. I would have to move to Florida to do that.
The good news: I can get a degree in biology and then specialize in aquatics as a graduate.
When I saw an opportunity to go to the Bahamas and have my G.I. Bill pay for it. I jumped!
Fast forward to one week ago.
On the bus at CSU.
In Atlanta. It was kind of a mad house there. We could only have 40 pounds between our checked bag and our carry on bag. I kept my weight about 30!
I think it finally felt real when I got this card from the flight attendant. We had to fill it out on the plane for customs.
The views were amazing. I was getting more and more excited.
When we arrived at Nassau, I was a little overwhelmed by the noise at the airport. It was quite busy and the taxi's were all honking at everyone. I saw some flowers on the grounds of the airport and felt compelled to check it out.
It was such a strange plant. It seemed the tree was dead except for the burst of life from these flowers.
We took a bus from Nassau International Airport, to a much smaller airport. We were running kind of behind (due to an issue with my friend Eve's passport).
I'm standing under the awning of this tiny, basically shed, restaurant situated right next to the smaller airport. I was trying to get a picture of the sea green clouds above. The clouds in the Bahamas reflect the ocean. If you squint just right, you'll see in the bit of clouds furthest away in the photo, they are tinged sea green. While we were waiting to get flights, I decided I should try some food coming from the "shed". It smelled pretty good.
I ordered the snapper and was pleasantly surprised when she called me up to the window and handed me a take out box. I paid her the $10 and sat down and ate some of the best fish I have ever had in my life!
Once I finished eating, I had the pleasure to meet a man named Nathaniel. I sat down next to him and fired up a conversation. He didn't live on Andros, but he has a business as a sports fisherman of tarpon and bone fish. We talked about quite a bit, life, politics, cost of living, kids, school when we were interrupted by a friend of his. He wanted to see a picture. I, not very secretly was completely eavesdropping. Nathaniel to me, "did you hear what we were talking about?" Yes! I want to see what you are talking about. He has a good chuckle and then shows me a picture on his cell phone.
It's called ambergris. What? Click on my link and read about it. Basically, it is whale poop or vomit that after years and years washes up on shore and when found, is worth a lot of money. $5 to $10 an ounce. My good friend Nathaniel found a piece of Ambergris that weighed 25 pounds. It is used in perfumes and is quite valuable. Nathaniel promises to email me a picture of it which I will gladly, GLADLY post here as soon as I get it!!
We finally get the call to get on the plane and we learned we would be on a five seater. My stomach panicked just a bit....
but I was in good company. Right next to me is Ashley, directly behind me is Arlena and next to her is Brooke. Kaitlyn, the other person in our group was in the seat next to the pilot. Glen.
I'm not sure if I have ever flown in a plane so small. While waiting to take off, I found a:
Newspaper and what I was pretty sure would end my life:
A loose screw. I tightened that bad boy up with my finger nail.
We waiting on the tarmac for over an hour. At one point, all the girls on my flight (myself included) became very frustrated. We were cooped up in this tiny plane, for way more than an hour, no air conditioning. Trying to make light of the situation, I said something along the lines of, we need a chocolate break. Lo and behold when out of the backseat comes some kitkats. We all munched on a piece or two and I think Glen sighed a breath of relief. We finally got the clearance to take off when Glen told us he had only been a pilot for two days and we were his second flight. I was certain death was imminent.
Before I knew it, we were in the air:
We lived.
The sights were amazing. I have never seen water that looked this beautiful.
Glen even let Kaitlyn fly for a few minutes.
Every so often you would see something in the water, hard to identify from so high up, but I think I saw jelly fish.
We landed on Andros and asked Glen if we could have a picture with him. He was such an awesome pilot and you will see how later in the week he made a selfless choice to help me out. From left to right: Arelena, Kaitlyn, Brooke, Glen, Cherish and Ashley.
We got on another bus and made our way to Forfar station (our final destination for the week).
I was immediately drawn to this post "May peace prevail on earth".
What isn't to love about this sign! Reminds me of home!
Panoramic view standing in front of my cabin and looking out.
A girl could get use to views like this!
Why hello Mr Sand Crab.
My home away from home for the week. These cabins are built with hurricane force winds in mind. The front part of this cabin is the porch. The main section is divided into two rooms that house four people on each side (so 8 people total can fit in one cabin), the back section is the bathroom. One shower, one toilet, six girls....
My mosquito netting. It had some holes in it, but I didn't mind. Eve took bandaids and closed up all her holes. She was determined (failed) to not sleep with the enemy.... mosquitoes. More about that later.
Once we got settled in, we went to an orientation briefing where we found out what would be expected of us and what we could expect for the week. We learned of a unique opportunity that we could take part of and of course I jumped on it. We found out there would be a festival in Nichols Town called Junkanoo.
"The festival may have originated several centuries ago, when slaves on plantations in The Bahamas celebrated holidays granted around Christmas time with dance, music, and costumes. After emancipation the tradition continued and junkanoo evolved from simple origins to a formal, organised parade with intricate costumes, themed music and official prizes within various categories " (wiki accessed on 26 Mar 16).
While at the festival, I had the opportunity to buy foods and I tried as many things as possible. My favorite was something called a conch fritter. I also had chocolate cake that was out of this world. I accidentally stumbled upon someone's "private" party thinking they were set up to sell food, but it turned out they were just hanging with their family. They didn't give me any free food, but lots of dirty looks. HA!
I remembered being surprised that there was security to get into this festival. It basically looked like a huge block party, but everyone was patted down and there was a strong police presence. That made me a little nervous. When I made my way to the gate, the pat down involved the female officer rubbing her hands down my pockets and up and around my bra. I have never been patted down in this manner before. On the one hand, maybe if everyone was patted down this way, there wasn't anything to worry about. I put it out of my mind and had a wonderful time. There was music, food, dancing and just general merriment.
Being a former band nerd, I think I was most excited to see the drum line roll through. We stayed until about 10 pm and then headed back to Forfar for the night. I slept well.
Tune in for day two.
I'm in school, full time and about one year away from graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. This past week, I was in the Bahama's for an ecology course. The purpose of this ecology course is to give me field training.
What did I learn from my trip in the Bahamas? I'm in the right degree track.
For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be a marine biologist. It has always seemed right out of my grasp. Odd since I grew up on the coast most of my life and even parts of my adult life. When we finally made it to Georgia, I thought I had it in the bag.
The bad news: Columbus State University does not offer a degree in Marine Biology. I would have to move to Florida to do that.
The good news: I can get a degree in biology and then specialize in aquatics as a graduate.
When I saw an opportunity to go to the Bahamas and have my G.I. Bill pay for it. I jumped!
Fast forward to one week ago.
On the bus at CSU.
In Atlanta. It was kind of a mad house there. We could only have 40 pounds between our checked bag and our carry on bag. I kept my weight about 30!
I think it finally felt real when I got this card from the flight attendant. We had to fill it out on the plane for customs.
The views were amazing. I was getting more and more excited.
When we arrived at Nassau, I was a little overwhelmed by the noise at the airport. It was quite busy and the taxi's were all honking at everyone. I saw some flowers on the grounds of the airport and felt compelled to check it out.
It was such a strange plant. It seemed the tree was dead except for the burst of life from these flowers.
We took a bus from Nassau International Airport, to a much smaller airport. We were running kind of behind (due to an issue with my friend Eve's passport).
I'm standing under the awning of this tiny, basically shed, restaurant situated right next to the smaller airport. I was trying to get a picture of the sea green clouds above. The clouds in the Bahamas reflect the ocean. If you squint just right, you'll see in the bit of clouds furthest away in the photo, they are tinged sea green. While we were waiting to get flights, I decided I should try some food coming from the "shed". It smelled pretty good.
I ordered the snapper and was pleasantly surprised when she called me up to the window and handed me a take out box. I paid her the $10 and sat down and ate some of the best fish I have ever had in my life!
Once I finished eating, I had the pleasure to meet a man named Nathaniel. I sat down next to him and fired up a conversation. He didn't live on Andros, but he has a business as a sports fisherman of tarpon and bone fish. We talked about quite a bit, life, politics, cost of living, kids, school when we were interrupted by a friend of his. He wanted to see a picture. I, not very secretly was completely eavesdropping. Nathaniel to me, "did you hear what we were talking about?" Yes! I want to see what you are talking about. He has a good chuckle and then shows me a picture on his cell phone.
It's called ambergris. What? Click on my link and read about it. Basically, it is whale poop or vomit that after years and years washes up on shore and when found, is worth a lot of money. $5 to $10 an ounce. My good friend Nathaniel found a piece of Ambergris that weighed 25 pounds. It is used in perfumes and is quite valuable. Nathaniel promises to email me a picture of it which I will gladly, GLADLY post here as soon as I get it!!
We finally get the call to get on the plane and we learned we would be on a five seater. My stomach panicked just a bit....
but I was in good company. Right next to me is Ashley, directly behind me is Arlena and next to her is Brooke. Kaitlyn, the other person in our group was in the seat next to the pilot. Glen.
I'm not sure if I have ever flown in a plane so small. While waiting to take off, I found a:
Newspaper and what I was pretty sure would end my life:
A loose screw. I tightened that bad boy up with my finger nail.
We waiting on the tarmac for over an hour. At one point, all the girls on my flight (myself included) became very frustrated. We were cooped up in this tiny plane, for way more than an hour, no air conditioning. Trying to make light of the situation, I said something along the lines of, we need a chocolate break. Lo and behold when out of the backseat comes some kitkats. We all munched on a piece or two and I think Glen sighed a breath of relief. We finally got the clearance to take off when Glen told us he had only been a pilot for two days and we were his second flight. I was certain death was imminent.
Before I knew it, we were in the air:
We lived.
The sights were amazing. I have never seen water that looked this beautiful.
Glen even let Kaitlyn fly for a few minutes.
Every so often you would see something in the water, hard to identify from so high up, but I think I saw jelly fish.
We landed on Andros and asked Glen if we could have a picture with him. He was such an awesome pilot and you will see how later in the week he made a selfless choice to help me out. From left to right: Arelena, Kaitlyn, Brooke, Glen, Cherish and Ashley.
We got on another bus and made our way to Forfar station (our final destination for the week).
I was immediately drawn to this post "May peace prevail on earth".
What isn't to love about this sign! Reminds me of home!
Panoramic view standing in front of my cabin and looking out.
A girl could get use to views like this!
Why hello Mr Sand Crab.
My home away from home for the week. These cabins are built with hurricane force winds in mind. The front part of this cabin is the porch. The main section is divided into two rooms that house four people on each side (so 8 people total can fit in one cabin), the back section is the bathroom. One shower, one toilet, six girls....
My mosquito netting. It had some holes in it, but I didn't mind. Eve took bandaids and closed up all her holes. She was determined (failed) to not sleep with the enemy.... mosquitoes. More about that later.
Once we got settled in, we went to an orientation briefing where we found out what would be expected of us and what we could expect for the week. We learned of a unique opportunity that we could take part of and of course I jumped on it. We found out there would be a festival in Nichols Town called Junkanoo.
"The festival may have originated several centuries ago, when slaves on plantations in The Bahamas celebrated holidays granted around Christmas time with dance, music, and costumes. After emancipation the tradition continued and junkanoo evolved from simple origins to a formal, organised parade with intricate costumes, themed music and official prizes within various categories " (wiki accessed on 26 Mar 16).
While at the festival, I had the opportunity to buy foods and I tried as many things as possible. My favorite was something called a conch fritter. I also had chocolate cake that was out of this world. I accidentally stumbled upon someone's "private" party thinking they were set up to sell food, but it turned out they were just hanging with their family. They didn't give me any free food, but lots of dirty looks. HA!
I remembered being surprised that there was security to get into this festival. It basically looked like a huge block party, but everyone was patted down and there was a strong police presence. That made me a little nervous. When I made my way to the gate, the pat down involved the female officer rubbing her hands down my pockets and up and around my bra. I have never been patted down in this manner before. On the one hand, maybe if everyone was patted down this way, there wasn't anything to worry about. I put it out of my mind and had a wonderful time. There was music, food, dancing and just general merriment.
Being a former band nerd, I think I was most excited to see the drum line roll through. We stayed until about 10 pm and then headed back to Forfar for the night. I slept well.
Tune in for day two.
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