Making more houses and Searching for Sites

The following day I went out with Paul and Diane to search for sites to as how Paul says it, “sink the lobster pots.” Luckily Paul was able to come pick me up at the house on the moto to bring me to Ceyba Park because Erasmo wasn’t around. I love riding on motos; I actually find them a lot more enjoyable than cars because it’s such an adventure, especially on these roads because you have to try to avoid all of the potholes.

Although the boat had been turned upside down, hung upside down from a tree, and the engine filled with water, the boat and motor were undamaged except for the hydraulics in the motor so it couldn’t go up or down, which could cause difficulties if we ran into objects, such as reefs or banks of sand in the river that came up out of nowhere (both of which happened by the way; everything just can’t go according to plan : )). We also forgot the ladder so Paul had to climb up the engine and Paul had to hoist me out of the water while I was trying to kick as hard as I could.

The requirements for the sites that I’m looking for have both seagrass beds and coral reefs, are between 3 and 5 meters deep so they can be reached by free-diving, can be seen from the shore for easy monitoring, and have hard bottoms so that they don’t fill with sand.

The first reef we checked out was renamed Bowsen’s Reef (after Paul and Diane’s dog) and is directly in front of Ceyba Park. Technically, the Marina de Guerra could monitor it with their boat that they never use and actually do something useful besides shooting dolphins and spreading rumors that it was a hammerhead shark that rammed the boat. This reef had brain corals that were almost as large as I was and I saw a school of surgeon fish that was a hundred strong. Some areas of the reef were in better quality than others and while we were snorkeling, a fishing boat with a compressor pulled up. Paul tried to intimidate them by whipping out his camera like he was taking photos. One of the fishermen was even standing up on the reef! Later on, they pulled up alongside us, as if to check us out. Paul coincidentally started strapping on his dive knife to his leg and they left to go fish a different reef. The reef is surrounded by fantastic seagrass, which also gets pretty deep and the visibility is very poor, which would be good for hiding lobster houses. However, as we saw, this reef gets a lot of traffic.

We then took off to Los Mameyes to find another reef that would be easily seen from that beach. We headed seaward and the water kept getting deeper so Paul suggested that we should try to find a different site, such as one that’s close to the Twin Tanks because he is going to be going there often to take tours. The downside is that it is at least an hour’s sail from Ceyba Park and longer from Los Mameyes. One the way there, we came across another reef and decided to check it out. This reef was mainly seagrass beds but had some patchy coral reefs, which I think would be an interesting comparison with the rich coral reefs of the other site. Also, there were a lot of fish despite the quality of the reefs. I saw a sea turtle and even what I think was a baby lobster! I also got my first glimpse of a lion fish, which are an invasive species and were recently added to the eco-survey list of species to identify. I talked to one of the fishermen in Los Mameyes and he says that he has seen a lot of them, and whenever he sees them, he kills them.

While I was out searching for lobster sites, Fran talked to some fishermen from the Bahamas here on vacation that use lobster houses! They said that they have lobster houses that have one small opening on one end that is on the alternate side on the other end, allowing the lobsters to take shelter from the current. To me, this sounds problematic beca

use the houses could become filled with sand more easily because it can’t exit. Fran and company also had managed to make seven more lobster houses without any guidance! This may or may not be good. They had somehow managed to find additional space on the tarp, hopefully on flat ground. Also, they had modified the cement recipe that Kelvin suggested from 26 shovelfuls arena, 13 shovelfuls gravillita, and one bag of cement, to 30 shovelfuls of arena, 10 shovelfuls of gravilla, and 15 shovelfuls of gravillita. This means that I can’t return the gravilla like I planned; oh well, you can only be in so many places at once.

Here's some photos of the set up. The frames were laid out on a tarp on the beach on the flattest ground available.

Here's a photo of the Dominican way of mixing concrete. Just make a pile of limestone, cement and gravel, mix it up, make an indentation, pour as much water as needed, and go!

Here's a photo of pouring concrete. To get the concrete to fit into the sides, the concrete had to have a higher water content.