Monday morning I set of for Los Mameyes again with the intent on collecting more data on lobsters. Luckily I got a vola from one of the fishermen that was heading to Los Mameyes anyways. I need to get myself a moto or convince Henry and Darien to get a moto for the program. It would make life a lot easier.
Juan wasn’t there this time and there was one fisherman weighing his lobster catch. When I asked him if I could measure the lobsters, he ignored me entirely, despite the additional pleas from the kids I was with. There was also a drunk man sitting outside the pescaderia and the overall mood of the place was not positive like the day before. It could also have been because it was a Monday. Luckily I don’t have to collect data on lobster fishing every day so I could afford not to measure those lobsters and it is interesting to know that some fishermen are reluctant to let me measure the lobsters. I hung out with the kids instead for a bit and we had fun. They asked me my age and sadly they didn’t believe that I was 60 years old.
When I got there, I had asked if Fran was around but was told that he was sleeping. Around 8 he emerged from his house and asked if we were going to drop the houses today. I had sent him a message last night saying that we weren’t planning on it because Darien had just got back from vacation and they both wanted to talk to him because the last lobster house drop off did not go smoothly and he seemed frustrated. He seemed set on dropping them today to get it over with, the seas were calm, the weather fantastic, and I wanted to get them in as soon as possible as well. I went back to the house, woke up Darien and Henry, called Paul and Diane to get the boat ready, and Henry and I took off to Los Mameyes.
The remaining lobster houses were on the roof and Fran designed an ingenious ramp and pulley system. They leaned four boards against the house, 2 stacked on top of each other, and they tied two ropes to the lobster house and lowered it down slowly. None of the lobster houses were damaged but a small part of Fran’s roof broke off… I wish I had a camera to take some photos of this!
Henry and I set of to Ceyba Park to help get the boat ready. The engine started right away and we made it out of the marina without running aground! We got to Los Mameyes around 11 and the yola had still not arrived. The plan had been to put 6 houses on the yola and 2 on the good boat Coral so that we only had to make one trip. Paul decided that if we had to, we could put all 8 of the houses on Coral. The boat couldn’t get very close to the shore because the engine was down so I held the boat in place while the fishermen ferried out the lobster houses on a surf board. I think the Los Mameyes fishermen are very ingenious people; they can figure out how to do anything with the resources they have. : )
Jonathan, who was a member of Kristi’s Brigada Verde group, helped as well. He is interested in working with Paul and Diane to help with getting tourists and leading tours in Spanish. I think he would be perfect for the job because he is very passionate about the environment and is charismatic.
After two houses were loaded onto the boat, the yola arrived! We decided to put four houses on the boat and four houses on the yola because the wind was picking up, making it kind of dangerous for the yola to have 6 houses on it. We took the boat and headed off for the drop off site while the yola was being loaded with the remaining 4 houses because Coral is slower than the yola. When we got there, we tried to find the two lobster houses that were sunk there on Saturday without any success. They may have sunk into the mud. We’ll have to get some tanks to try to salvage them. I tried to find other sites that were not muddy, but it was impossible. We had to move to another site and we were low on gas….
Luckily I had a back-up plan. We took another 15 minute sail to the site where we looked for an anchor from a wreck about a month ago. It has both seagrass and coral reefs and is deeper than the Bowsen’s Reef site so it will be a good comparison. Four were dropped close to coral reefs and four close to seagrass beds.
We slowly sailed back to Ceyba Park to conserve gas. When we got back it was 3:30 and Henry and I were exhausted and starving. It was a long day, but very successful. Maybe I shouldn’t do so much planning because things seem to go better when nothing is planned and you figure it out as you go along. That seems to be the Dominican way. Paul and Diane have removed the word probably from their vocabulary because everything that happens here never had any certainty. However, I need that word because I become disappointed when things don’t turn out as planned and things can usually be accomplished on another day. When you have to rely on other people to do things, you have to work in a little flexibility to your schedule, especially when working here.
Stay tuned for photos! I have some from loading the houses that I need to steal from Paul and Diane. Hopefully I can get Darien to come with me to collect lobster data and take pictures of the lobsters and the fish that they bring in. The colors of fresh fish rival their colors in the water and you can see them up close.
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