Why Dominicans Eat Codfish (Bacalao)

When I first arrived in the Dominican Republic, I was intrigued by two things that I thought were strange for a tropical island nation: the most popular fish eaten was "bacalao" (Bah-cah-LAH-oh) or dried codfish from the Northeast Atlantic and that most Dominicans don't know how to swim. I still don't know why Dominicans don't know how to swim, but after doing some internet research, I discovered why Dominicans savor the taste of codfish over fresh fish caught along their coasts. Thanks to Google Books, I was able to read the excerpt of a book called the Caribbean, the Codfish Story. When Europeans colonized the New World, they discovered that the waters off the coast of Newfoundland were teeming with cod. This fish supplanted the codfish industries in Europe because it was more plentiful and accessible and provided the base of the triangle trade between Europe, the Caribbean, and the Northeast colonies. High quality cod was exported to Europe, and salt cod was exported to the Caribbean, where it was the preferred food for slaves because it was high in protein, did not spoil, and did not take up a lot of space. The Caribbean traded sugar cane and other agricultural products for cod and slaves in Europe.

On my list of books to read is Mark Kurlansky's Cod: Biography of a Fish that Changed the World.

Lobster Houses Illegal in Florida Keys

I found these two videos on the use of lobster houses in Florida, which is illegal. Divers dump all kinds of material into the ocean in order to attract lobsters and have been causing damage to the environment and is resulting in overfishing. According to the video though they have been very successful and have been bringing more lobster than the fishers that use traps. There are some fishers that are licensed to create artificial reefs by dumping materials but they have to be approved beforehand to make sure that the area where the dumping occurs will not be damaged and the materials will not disintegrate and cause damage to the environment.

I think that lobster houses should be regulated to make sure that they are made out of approved materials and put in the proper locations to reduce environmental impact, but I'm not convinced that they should be completely banned. The fishers that use traps feel threatened because the lobster houses are more effective and their fishing method is harmful to the environment as well. When there is a major storm, their traps get thrown about reefs causing damage and the fishers leave juvenile lobsters, called "shorts," in their traps to attract other lobsters. This results in a significant loss in the number of juveniles in this fishery because they usually get eaten by other lobsters or fish or die due to starvation.

Shark Fishing

WARNING!

This post may contain images, videos, and information that may be alarming for those that are ecologically-conscious and/or squeamish.

This Sunday I had an extraordinary experience. I went shark fishing with Fran, Luis, and Paul. I do not know how long Fran has been shark fishing, but below is a photo of Fran with the biggest shark that he has ever caught. It has to be over 15 years old. He says that he is the only shark fisher in Miches.

While I was in Miches over the summer I wasn't aware of shark fishing occurring, which could be because Fran didn't trust me or the others working for ESSEG, but when I came back over winter break, Paul told me that Fran goes shark fishing quite often and had offered to take him out. He sets out nets to catch enough rays and other fish to use as bait, which he puts on lines with a giant hook on the end and a large buoy. There is a row of 5 bouys on one line. This time he caught 4 sharks on 5 lines.

Fran sells the entire shark: its fins, the meat, the shark oil, and the teeth. The fins are sold to Chinamen who come all the way to Miches to buy the fins from him for 800 pesos ( $22) a pound. The Chinese use them to make shark fin soup, which is considered a delicacy and has been growing in popularity as people are able to afford it. In most other locations where sharks ar caught for its fins, it's finned alive and thrown over board to slowly die. So one upside about shark fishing in Miches is that almost everything is used. The meat is sold to the cities and the fishers say that it tastes delicious. The shark oil is used locally for curing respiratory aliments. Over the summer, one of the kids in Los Mameyes was sick so they gave him a botella made from shark liver oil, honey, and some other herbs to drink. I was feeling under the weather as well and they let me try some. It tasted like honey. They also use the shark's teeth to make necklaces and other jewelry. Fran's wife said that she had a necklace made from shark's teeth.

Here is one of the four tiger sharks that were caught. When they were cleaned, together they all weighed 480 pounds. Fran said that sometimes they only catch one shark that weighs over 500 pounds. When sharks get that big, they can't load it into the boat and drag it alongside it. They would rathe rhave larger sharks than smaller sharks. For these sharks, they got 2,000-3,000 pesos for each, which is around US$ 56-83.

Here's a shark that got its head bitten by another shark after the fishers left it out on the line to die.

Hooked

This shark was a little "guapo," the Dominican word for agressive, and had to be tied down with a line.

Shark fishing footage.

Shark fishing is not sustainable and is one more reason why I hope the lobster house project is successful. You are fishing at the top of the food chain, which disrupts the entire balance of the ecosystem, and it is unhealthy to consume shark meat because it is high in mercury since it is so high in the food chain. I also do not like that they catch spotted eagle rays, which are listed as not threatened by the IUCN, but would be a thrill for a tourist to see while snorkeling. They are truly magnificant fish. I don't know why they can't use other types of fish or even rotten meat from the butcher. It is very profitable though and as Fran said, shark fishing is is "divertido" (fun) compared to other kinds of fishing. I imagine he takes pride in being able to kill these top predators of the ocean. One aspect of this experience that gave me hope is that there are enough sharks out there in order to be able to shark fish. This means that the ecosystem is very healthy because the more top predators there are, the less effect fishing has had on the ecosystem. This has been shown by the research conducted at the Palmyra atoll, an isolated island that has never had extenisive fisheries and 56% of its total fish biomass is top predators. I hope that shark fishing will be stopped before the sharks are fished out.

As for the legality of shark fishing, it is legal to fish for sharks besides the basking shark, the great white, and the whale shark. The only state in the US in which shark fishing is illegal is Hawaii but the US has toughened its laws so that there shark finning is illegal, meaning that the entire shark must be kept and shark fins can still be traded and sold in restaurants. However, more than 80 other countries are suppliers to the shark fin market in Hong Kong, which is stated by this article, and one kilo (2.2 pounds) of shark fin can go for US$ 120. The demand for shark fins is not going to disappear any time soon. It is not on the same level as blue fin tuna and Japan because there are many different species and sharks will be likely to be protected by CITES in the future because they are charismatic and not as tasty. What worries me is that there are so many species that can be fished to meet the shark fin demand, which means that fishers can switch to other species once one has been made illegal, causing a total collapse of all shark populations. A total ban on shark fishing and the sale of shark fins should be issued before this happens.

Fishing with Fran

Yesterday Paul and I woke up at 7 to be at Fran’s by 8 to go with him to set out his “transmayos” (pronounced tra-my-os) so that we could check the lobster houses and do some snorkeling. It was nice to be back. : ) I had stopped by the previous afternoon to say hi and to ask if we could go out with him . I was able to talk to Fran, Juan, and the man who buys the fish. They all told me that that day was the first day in a month that the fishermen had been able to go out fishing because there had been such bad weather. A breeze from the north had made fishing nearly impossible. I also think they didn’t go out because it was the holiday season and during that time is one big party.

We arrived at los Mameyes exactly at 8 but didn’t end up leaving until 9:15, which was typical Dominican time. I got to try some “pan de coco,” coconut bread, made by a woman I met over the summer that was delicious. It also had cardamom in it. I also made friends with Fran’s new five month old puppy named Terry.

This time I didn’t want to use a wet suit because I didn’t have any weights and knew that if I used one, I would be fighting to stay underwater. It did make the trip a little chilly though. My ears were not used to popping and my breath hold was less than normal because I hadn’t been free diving in three months. With the help of another fisherman and his thirteen year old son, Fran put out three nets, which I was surprised to notice had holes that were as large as my hand. Most fishermen use nets with holes that are only three centimeters wide and are illegal because they catch juvenile fish. Perhaps he did it because we were with us or because he was going for larger prey.

I snorkeled twice, once around the second site where we put the lobster houses while I was here over the summer and another time around Media Luna. We checked three houses and they did not have any lobsters, but there was a crab under them. I wasn’t able to stay down there long enough to lift them up so it was a good thing that Paul was there with me. The next day my breath hold was a lot better and my ears became used to equalizing again, but there were no lobster houses to check. We also checked one of the houses made from tin roofing that they had built three weeks ago and it didn’t have any lobsters in it either. However I did find a lobster underneath a rock with its antennae sticking out not 10 meters from one of the old lobster houses. It looked almost of legal size as well; too bad I didn’t have a net or a camera at least. Our Media Luna dive was fantastic! I saw a box fish underneath a rock that was twice as large as my head. Sadly he was shy and we didn’t get a good picture of it. Media Luna is full of caves and tunnels that are waiting to be explored. Paul promised to bring his torches next time.

The next day we arrived at seven in the morning to go with Fran to bring his nets back in. When we got there, he was still sleeping, but we ended up leaving at 8. We checked the first two nets with no luck and they left them out for another day. However, we could tell that the third net by Media Luna had something because the buoys were sunk. I could see the white entangled shape of a shark’s belly on the bottom of the ocean from the boat. Paul kitted up and went over board to check it out. I followed. The shark was dead but on either side of it were two beautiful spotted eagle rays that were still struggling. Paul helped them get the fish on board and I occupied myself with some snorkeling. I saw three small great barracudas, two goat fish, and some other reef fish. It wasn’t a long snorkel and then we got on the boat to go back to shore. They started to cut up the shark, which was a juvenile white shark, throwing the head, innards, and fins over board. I told the fishermen that the Chinese use the fins to make soup and that they pay a lot of money for them. They seemed to already know. The rays they left to die before cutting them up, saying they were going to use them for shark bait. Fran sets out lines in the ocean loaded with bait to attract sharks, sometimes using manta rays. Hopefully we will get to go with him to fish for sharks in a few days, which would make for an interesting experience. Fran brought up a few of his “corazones” (nasas that are shaped like a heart) and a “cuadra” (a nasa that is shaped like a square), but only had a few small reef fish to show for it. He took off the buoys and sunk them to prevent people from finding them. One of the fish was a puffer fish and when they put it into a bucket of water, it puffed up. They tossed it overboard and it floated. They said it would eventually deflate and swim away. I know it was cruel but it was cool to see the fish puff up like that. In Spanish the fish is called “pez globo,” or globe fish. He also caught three Nassau groupers, which are endangered if I remember correctly. The fishermen told us that they are used for soup. They can be identified by the stripe shaped like a tuning fork on their foreheads. His catch also consisted of some groupers and two trigger fish. The other fisherman skinned the triggerfish and cut out the eyes to make it ready to cook and cut slices in them to cook them “a la plancha,” on the grill.

Here's the Nassau grouper:

The puffer fish:
And one of the corazones:
Paul lifting up one of the houses we made over the summer.

I don’t agree with their fishing methods, but I think it’s important to actually learn how it’s done in order to help change it. Tourists would spend a significant amount of money to see manta rays or eagle rays and it’s sad that they are killing them just to use them as bait because they could have easily been untangled and freed. However, there are no tourists and the lobster houses haven’t had much success and wouldn’t be able to provide income for all of the fishermen at least for a few years.

Thanksgiving News!

Thanksgiving Day I found out that two of the houses had 6 lobsters each! Paul and Diane were having their first snorkeling excursion and decided to check two of the houses on Boson's Reef. Who knows how many lobsters are in the other houses! I guess I'm going to have to wait to find out...

Return Trip

Yesterday I booked my flight tickets for the DR! My boyfriend and I are going on December 29th. I'm staying until the 19th, but he's only staying until a week later. I'm planning on spending a few days in Santo Domingo with him and to see the New Year's fireworks that happens every year in Santo Domingo. Then we are off to Monte Cristi so that I can learn more about the lobster houses there. Angel, the head of the program there, is supposed to be there as well, so I'll have a translator and I'll actually get to talk to him in person after our numerous e-mail and phone calls. My goals while I'm there are to check the lobster houses, interview the fishermen, and learn all I can about the program. Then we might have enough time to go to Miches before Thomas has to leave so that I can show him where I spent my summer. : )

I found out yesterday as well that 40 more houses are going to be built this weekend! It's a good thing that I'm constantly logged in on skype or I never would have known. I chatted with Henry for a bit in the morning and that night Victor asked me for bus information because he is helping with the construction and is coming in from Punta Cana. This means that the houses might be in the water by the time I get there and that I can check them for lobsters, collect GPS points and any other information that hasn't been collected. The houses are going to be split between two communities: Los Mameyes (the community that already has the houses) and Sabana de Nisibon (the community that Angela is stationed in). Juan is going to be collecting data on the lobster catch that is brought in, including all of the information that I collected this summer, such as the fishing method, number of lobsters, species, weight, sex, carapace length, total length, tail length, and presence of eggs.

Spiny Lobster Dinner

I couldn't believe that I only got to try spiny lobster the day before I left the DR after I had been there for 3 months studying lobster fishing! Everyone agreed that the lobsters were very tasty and that they should support the lobster fishermen more often by buying more lobsters. This dinner is partially due to the request of Ina, who wanted to try spiny lobster because she had never had it as well. She is a fantastic cook and whipped up some delicious garlic butter that was to die for.

Do not read this part of the blog if you are squeamish about your food because it depicts the methods in which we committed lobster murder. I know a lot of people do not like to think of their food as once being a living thing. I practically grew up on a sheep and goat farm in which my uncle was slaughtering animals every day, so I've thought about it a lot and it doesn't make me squeamish. I also think it's better to know where your food comes from and that you appreciate it more if you are part of the process. I only eat meat when I know that it has been raised in humane conditions (has plenty of space to grow and exercise, doesn't receive any unnecessary antibiotics, and is produced by small farmers) and is local. I guess you could call me a meat locavore or a picky meat eater or a flexitarian with standards.

The Gruesome Details of the Murder: We wanted to reduce the suffering of the lobsters and read online that if you stabbed them in the body, they would die quicker than boiling them in water. We tried that but they remained squirming for at least five minutes. The boiling method was a lot faster. After the initial shock of being submerged in water, they stopped moving much faster so we switched methods. Also, piercing their shells allows all of their juices to leak out and may result in a less tasty lobster.

A photo of us ready to enjoy our meal. Ina is taking it and from the left to right is Eliseo, Henry, me, and Darien.

Spiny lobsters are so much more beautiful than Maine lobsters.

A lobster pig pile!

This was a fantastic day of lobsters and rainbows. : )

The Trip to Caco P's Houses

Finally I get to update my blog! I've been waiting for people to send me photos.

My last day in Miches was spent with Ina Vanderbroek, an ethnobotanist from the New York Botanical Garden, and Eliseo, a potential volunteer and a friend of Wilman. It was the only time every that I had visitors. I had been in touch with Ina since last semester because she has done research on botanicas in New York City and wrote a paper on botellas, which is the type of traditional medicine that mamajuana is. Unfortunately, I was never able to talk to her in person but was extremely excited that she was coming to Miches. It was a treat to spend the day with her and show her my project. All of these pictures are hers and I was extremely grateful to have her along because I haven't had a camera since the beginning of my stay in the DR (I blame the technology-destroying tropical humidy). Eliseo was going to be a volunteer in Miches and continue collecting data on the size and number of lobsters that are brought in as well as help check the lobster houses every other weekend, but he got a job and had to back out.

Here is a lovely photo of us in our dollar store hats. (From left to right: me, Ina, and Eliseo)

Me measuring the lobsters that we bought from my friend Watchiman, who is a nasa fisherman. Watchiman is his nickname and in English it means watchman.
Here is a photo of Caco P sporting his diving gear and his compresor he used to dive down to the houses. Techinically the houses are shallow enough not to use a compressor and he wouldn't be harmed if he had to rapidly ascend to the surface but he wanted to take his time down there to show the lobsters and the houses. Sadly I couldn't descend very far because I was recovering from swimmer's ear. I will never learn to use alcohol drops in my ears to avoid this yearly pain. No one else has to go through it! I blame my small ear canals.
Here is one of Fran's sons repairing one of Fran's nasas. A few of the nasas that we brought up were so damaged that there were no lobsters in them because they had all escaped. This nasa had lobsters in it but was due for some repairs.
For bait, the fishermen use rotten meat they get from carnecerias (meat shops) or by catch that people don't like to eat, such as this spotted sting ray that they are cutting up.
Another photo of Caco P silohetted against the sky. I like this photo a lot. Caco P is what Dominicans call an hablador, which means he likes to talk and usually what he says doesn't mean anything. In other words, he is a bullshitter. He asked me to bring back a scuba diving sit for him because his is falling apart. I wish I could but that is an expensive request. Maybe I can find an old on for free. I'm planning on bringing back stickers and those rub-on tatoos for the kids because they love that kind of thing and some baby clothes for one of the mothers.
This was really a magical trip. We saw a rainbow! Not just any rainbow either. We saw both sides and it reflected off of the water to form a complete circle. Stuck in my head for the rest of the day was Kermit the Frong singing the Rainbow Connection.
Here is a photo of Los Mameyes, the community I worked in. It's located right on the beach and every day people gather underneat the almond tree and hang out. Sadly I didn't get a photo of the almond tree, which is probably my favorite place in Miches. The breeze coming off of the ocean is fantastic and there are no jejenes (sandfleas that are the same size but worse than New England noseeums). The beach is covered in trash and their houses are small and dirty but I've never met happier people.
Every morning and evening trucks with coolers filled with ice would descend the steep hill to pick up the catch the fishermen would bring in. I was afraid to go down that hill and would always get off the moto and complete the journey on foot. The fish were actually quite beautiful out of the water, especially the parrot fish with their bright blues, reds, and yellows. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of them. I will take tons of photos when I go back to the Dominican Republic this winter.
Here is me showing Eliseo and Ina how to tell the difference between a male and female lobster. Female lobsters have modified pleopods underneath their tail that hold the eggs. This is a female lobster and I am pointing to her pleopods.
Currently I'm planning my return trip to the DR and looking at all of these pictures is making me miss the Dominican Republic all the more. It's going to be fun to go back! : )

Underwater Camera

I developed the photos that I took of the DR from my underwater camera a few weeks ago and they turned out horrible! All of the photos that were taken underwater were all fuzzy and the ones above water were not of good quality. It also cost $17 to develop them!

Here's a photo of one of Fran's lobster traps.

One of Ina Vanderbroek holding up her lobster catch. She caught them with her bare hands! : )
The only underwater picture that I thought was interesting but still of poor quality of Caco P checking his house. He only found two lobsters in his houses when we went and they were both undersized. However, he said that a few days before this photo was taken he took out more than 200!

Fran, me, Ina, and Eliseo enjoying the rainy boat ride. : )

Destruction by Hurricane Earl

I talked to Victor last week and in Punta Cana, Hurricane Earl tipped over the frame that I helped him set up, killing half of the coral I helped transplant! Also, many of the rope frames with coral on them were destroyed. Hopefully my houses are ok, but they haven't been checked since the hurricane... Luckily Miches is more towards the West of the country and may have received some protection from the Samana Peninsula. Lobster houses have been known to meet their end to hurricanes. In the Bahia de Ascension in Mexico, half of the area's 20,000 lobster houses were destroyed due to a hurricane.

Lobster Measuring and Dominoes

My last week in the DR was packed with activity and was a few weeks ago so I only remember the highlights. There are also photos that I'm waiting on so I will describe further details in subsequent blog postings. This lobster is a photo of the largest lobster I was able to measure. It was caught at a depth of 120 feet with a compressor and is 30 centimeters long!

I spent a lot of time hanging out at Los Mameyes. During that time I learned how to pass the time playing the beloved Domininican pastime of dominoes. However, in Los Mameyes they play it differently. It is also the only way that I know how to play dominoes so I can't compare it very well with other variations. They play dominoes with concrete blocks. There are no teams and the loser of the previous round has to put a block on their shoulder for the next game. It is entertaining and a workout. When someone wins by capicua, which is when the winning domino matches both ends, the loser has to put two blocks on their shoulder! This is a photo of Fran passing the block to me because I lost. I tended to lose a lot... It did make my shoulders stronger though! : )

Impromptu Lobster House Drop Off

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.

Lobster Drop Off Failure and Lesson in Lobster Anatomy

When I talked to Fran last night, he said that he would tell the fisherman that was going to use the yola to come back early, but that didn’t end up happening. Although I didn’t get the chance to drop off the remaining houses, I still was able to collect data on lobsters that were being brought in and made some interesting observations.

I showed up at los Mameyes around 7 once again by foot. I really need to get a moto. When I got there, I said hi to Juan, the CODOPESCA representative, and he beckoned me over to a cooler that was filled with lobsters! Over the course of an hour another pair of fishermen brought in even more. Over the course of two days, I’ve measured 128 lobsters! 22 spinys, 4 piedras, and 102 pintas. All of the pintas were of legal size, which is larger than 9 cm, but 10% of them had eggs and are therefore illegal to catch. Half of the spiny lobsters and all of the piedras were undersized. However, all of the lobsters that I measured are illegal because they use compressors and ganchos. Sadly I didn't see any lobsters of this size...

Here's a photo of how to measure the carapace length of the spiny lobsters. Here the carapace length needs to be 3 inches, which is the law in the US. That is actually the equivalent of 7.62 cm, which is slightly smaller than the size limit for the DR, which is 8 cm.

The laws regulating the size of lobsters in the Dominican Republic use total length, tail length, and abdominal length instead of the scientific measurement using the carapace length. For the lobsters I measured so far, I used the carapace length for the spinys, because other studies have already converted the total length measurement used by the DR to the carapace length and the total length for the painted and rock lobsters. However, I don't know from what points the total length is measured and it varies from country to country. Some start measurements from the base of the antennae; others from the base of the eye. Some include the telson, the end part of the tail that isn't fleshy. Here's a photo illustrating the anatomy of the lobster to give you an idea.

The fishermen were very interested in what I was doing and they gathered around while I was measuring. I wish my Spanish was better because I think there were some heated conversations going on. Most of the fishermen were positive and wanted to know what the legal size of the lobsters were. They said that no one tells them what the size is. I think that they don’t have the resources to know or the incentives to actually follow the laws. The laws are very difficult to find and are only found on the internet. I think that they should be posted on every beach and in every pescaderia. One of the fish buyers wanted to know what size lobster was legal and one of the fishermen marked his gancho with the legal size of spiny lobsters so that he could size up the lobsters before he hooks them. One of the fishermen said that the office of the ministry of the environment that got set up in El Asphalto is a sign that tourism is coming to the area, but another fishermen said that it was only another military presence. It was very interesting.

I also observed that the fishermen started drinking beer and rum after they had finished weighing their catch. It makes sense since they left los Mameyes around 4 in the afternoon and came back around 8 in the morning so they are unwinding after a hard night’s work. I found it interesting that it was also a Sunday and they still work. Also, around 9 in the morning people were already playing pool, mostly kids, and the bachata music was blaring. By the time those kids are teenagers, they are going to be pool sharks. While I was hanging out waiting for the yola to arrive, the five young boys that always follow me around that are around 7-10 years old tried to give me tattoos. The boys had at least 3 tattoos each that they get from packages of cookies. They put one on my leg but sadly only one half stuck.

Lobster Drop Off Numero Dos and First Data Collection

Yesterday we dropped off 6 more lobster houses. We were planning on doing all of them, but technical difficulties arose once again. I woke up at 6 and was at the beach for 7. Henry, Raj, and Eliza all accompanied me. The yola arrived around 8:30 and we headed off to Ceyba Park to get Paul and Diane’s boat. The motor wouldn’t start because we finally figured out that the problem was that one of the fuses was dead. We finally headed out to sea around 10 and since the tide was so low, the boat grounded. We had to get out and push. We went to Bowsen’s reef first and dropped four more houses close to the reef in deeper water than the other site.

The remaining two houses we dropped off in the other location that I want to call Lion Fish Reef because every time I’ve gone diving there, I’ve seen a lion fish. This time I saw two! I know they are invasive but they are beautiful. They are really majestic looking fish because they float in the water so calmly and ignore snorkelers. I jumped into the water without my weight belt far from the reefs with a strong current so I had to hold onto the bouy while the boat dragged me to the reef. It was not pleasant because water kept getting into my snorkel. We dropped two houses in an area that I thought would be good location next to the reef, but when the houses hit the ground, they sunk into the sediment at a 30 degree angle. I couldn’t reach them because I didn’t have my weight belt on so we will have to return to them soon and fix them.

After the drop off we went out to lunch at Paulina’s and Raj had his first bandera meal in the DR, the midday meal that Dominicans have every day that consists of rice, beans, salad (cabbage, lettuce, tomato, and cucumber), and a meat dish. We went back to the house and I passed out for two hours on the cot because for the past three nights I had only been getting five hours of sleep and had been waking up at 6 every day for five days. It felt fantastic! The cold shower afterwards did too.

I headed back to los Mameyes around 4 after my break and found Fran. We needed to figure out when we were going to drop off the remaining 8 houses. Fran seems to be a little impatient with us because we’re putting the houses in areas that he thinks are high traffic areas for fishing. He kept joking to everyone that he wanted to get rid of the houses because they are a lot of work. However, he went back to Bowsen’s Reef and found a lobster in one of the houses! I wish I was there. It was a spiny and he said it was small.

I also hung out with Juan, the CODOPESCA representative and collected my first data on the size and number of lobsters that were brought in using other methods. The lobster fishermen come in from 4-6 in the afternoon and from 4-9 in the morning.

I also had a brief conversation with a fisherman who said that the price of lobster increases in the tourist season, which starts around October. I’ll have to look at the prices of lobster that Carlos gave me to see if that is true. He also said that the lobsters get sent to the touristy areas of the DR like Bavaro, Punta Cana, and Santo Domingo.

La Primera Tirada

At six in the morning I woke up to my alarm and by quarter of 7 I was walking to Los Mameyes with all of my eqiptment, including the GPS, the depth gage, binoculars, duck tape, bug spray, sunscreen, diving mask and snorkel, pocket Spanish dictionary, measuring tape, pencils, and notebook. When I got there, Fran told me that the boat we were going to use was currently stranded in the middle of the Lleguada because it was left there as the tide went out. Two fishers went on a moto to take try to push it out and by 8 they had arrived. Then we started to load the houses onto the boat. It took five fishermen to lift up each of the houses. They were able to balance six of the houses on the boat! Half of each of the houses were sticking up. I told Fran that there was no way we were going to be able to fit more people onto the boat and that we had to find another boat. At this point Paul arrived and said that he could take people in his boat, which is a lot larger, but we couldn’t put the houses on his boat because the motor was broken and couldn’t be raised. I took off with Paul on his moto with the plan to meet Fran in front of Ceyba Park. As we were loading the equipment onto the boat, Paul realized that the key was missing. Then he realized that the bag with most of the equipment and the dive computers was not in the dive shop. After a half an hour of frantic calls to Diane and asking the Marina de Guerra how this had happened, Paul reentered the dive shop and found the bag underneath the mattress. I guess one of the marines had moved it because they thought that it might get stolen in plain view. So after these delays we set off again. It was also an experience to get out of the marina because due to the storm, there were a multitude of sticks in the middle of the river as well as sand banks. The boat grounded 5 times on the way out.

We met up with Fran and went to the site we had picked out, which was right in front of Ceyba Park. Fran said that it was no use putting the lobster houses here because they would be found by other fishermen because it is fished a lot and the depth is approximately 2 meters so you can see them from a boat when you look down into the water when the visibility is good. While I was getting suited up, one of the houses somehow fell into the water. It actually landed in a perfect location, in the sand next to the seagrass. We put another house close to that one and then tried to find some other sites farther away so that they would be spread out. While I was trying to find another site, the fishermen put another house in the water right on top of the seagrass. We are going to have to move it later. All of the sites were marked with GPS by one of the fishermen. He told me that he knew how to mark points but after the first house he asked me how to do it. We are going to have to return to the houses to make sure we have the right points. Hopefully all of them will be found again… Five houses were put in seagrass and one house close to coral reefs. By the time we finished it was almost 11 and the wind was picking up, making it impossible to put the remaining 4 dry houses in the water. I went back to the house, ate lunch, packed and was off to Santo Domingo on the 2:00 guagua with my backpack loaded with everything I would need for a fun weeked dancing in the capital and hiking Pico Duarte. I certainly pick the timing of my vacations well...

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.

Construction Day Numero Uno

I could hardly sleep the night before because I was nervous and had drunk a cup of coffee at 9 at night, which was a very bad idea, especially since I have broken my addiction to coffee and it effects me greatly again. We had an early morning and got to the ferreteria as soon as they opened at 8 in the morning to make sure that they sent us the varilla de 1/8” (iron bar) and camion filled with gravillita as soon as possible so that we could get started. We had a motoconcho go pick up the varilla. I thought it was quite a sight to see two kids on a moto dragging along 10 twenty foot long sections of varilla. I told Kelvin and he said, “Where have you been? You’ve been here 2 months and you haven’t seen crazy things like people carrying a pig on a moto?” I haven’t seen that, but I have seen some crazy shit being carried on motos and I don’t think I will ever tire of it. Like many people who come to the DR, I want to make a photo essay of all of the crazy moto loads that go by.

We headed back to the beach and put together the frames around the varilla that had been welded together. We cut 1.3 m lengths of the 1/8” varilla and tied them to the frames with alambre dulce. Eight were tied on lengthwise and four were bent and tied on horizontally. We got a lot of help from the kids.

We also cut all of the boards that we would need to construct the frames the next day.

Then we laid out the tarp on the flattest ground available that was right in front of the bar. There was enough space for seven casitas and we gathered together scraps of lona that were conveniently clinging to Fran’s roof and some cardboard that was laying around and placed the three remaining casitas we constructed the wooden frames to put around the welded varilla. There were two pieces that went lengthwise that were approximately 1.4 m long. The inside pieces were trimmed so that they wouldn’t hang over the outside pieces. We used wood that was 1 x 10 x 14 ft. The trimmed part we were planning to use to cover the ends but we realized that we would need more than one nail to make cover the cement coming out of the sides so we had to cut more boards. We only ended up making 10 frames because the wood is the most expensive investment in making the houses and can be reused a day after the houses are made. The nails are removed and the boards peeled off. The houses still are not dry enough to be moved though. That can happen after two days, as we found out since we had to prop up some of the houses to make the final three.

Lobster house Education Session

A month and a half ago, we met with Kelvin, an independent consultant that had been hired by ReefCheck to do lobster houses in La Caleta, and Kikito, the president of the fisherman’s association in La Caleta. We asked them to help us build our first lobster houses and to give an education session to the fishermen. However, they weren’t available until this week.

Kelvin and Kikito arrived to Miches around 10:30 on Tuesday, a half an hour before the education session was supposed to start and a half an hour after the fishermen were told the information session would be so that they would be on time : ). We arrived at Fran’s bar at 11:15 baring bottles of coca cola, 40 empanadas, a projector, a laptop, and a lobster house frame already made. Merengue and bachata music was blaring, people were playing pool and the beer was already flowing before noon. We set up the chairs and realized that we didn’t have sheet to project onto so Fran decided to paint a section of his wall white and that solved the problem. : ) We were finally ready to begin around 11:45 because we had to wait for all of the fishermen to assemble. Carlos gave an introduction and told the fishermen the importance of sustainable fishing. A feat considering he has had the flu for almost two weeks. Then I got up and read from the sheet of paper that Wilman had helped me translate that told how this was a scientific study that was part of my thesis and that Fran would be re

sponsible for these casitas and that they would be marked by buoys telling people not to fish there. If anyone was caught in these areas they would be arrested or fined because we have the support of CODOPESCA, SEMARENA, and the Marina de Guerra. I tried to be as engaging and loud as possible but the generator was extremely loud because the power was out and my Spanish is still not that great… Kelvin than did his thing and gave a power point presentation about the lobster houses. The fishermen were very interested, especially after hearing that each lobster house could have as many as 200 lobsters and after seeing the video of the fishermen collecting the lobsters. Fran looks the most interested; he's the one in the red shirt.

We took an empanada break and doled out some refrescos. No one helped me but Wilman. There were way too many people than refrescos due to the presence of a multitude of children and women that were mostly there because of the food. I tried to hand out the empanadas to people but no one would come up and take them. I ended up just putting the empanadas on one of the pool tables with napkins beside them and they disappeared within minutes.

Luckily after the refrescos many people left besides the fishermen and Kelvin described how to make the houses. I was surprised that they were very attentive because it was already 1:30, which is during the Dominican lunch break. After that we went to lunch at Paulina’s in town. Then we went to the ferreteria to sort out buying materials. I had told Kelvin that I had bought one m3 of arena caliza (limestone) and one m3 of gravilla (gravel). He had originally told me to buy 20 m3 of arena caliza and 10 m3 of gravillita and when I had gone to the ferreteria to buy the material, the people working there questioned what I was making because they knew that this was enough concrete to make a small house. They helped us do some calculations from the amount of finished concrete we would make and told us that we would need approximately one m3 of each and that is what I bought, figuring I could always buy more later.

When Kelvin saw the materials, he told me that the gravel that I had bought was too big because it wouldn’t fit into the sides of the houses to make the legs so we went to the ferreteria and ordered a camion (two m3) of gravillita (little gravel) to get us started. He also told me that we had to buy the remaining quantities of the materials because they get used up quickly so I ordered half as much as he asked me to buy because that was a lot of material and the program didn’t leave that much money for me to spend. Luckily, in the end I figured out to make 20 houses we only needed to order 2m3 of arena and 1m3 of gravillita and I cancelled the rest of the order. Luckily the ferreteria was slow in getting me the material so we only got the one camion of gravillita that day and the next day I only had to order 1 additional m3 of arena. We still have enough leftover material to make approximately 20 more houses!

This day I also found out that Wilman was leaving for the capital for two days. That means that I was losing my translator and my only remaining team member! Darien was in San Juan de las Matas with all three of the peace corp volunteers, Henry was still in the states due to his knee injury, and even Arias was in Virginia undergoing training. Carlos was extremely ill and I was surprised that he was able to speak at the education session and Juan was not present throughout the entire construction except for the last three houses. Erasmo also ended up going to the capital on the following day to pay some late fees for dive equipment and the next day to drop off the car to Henry, who was arriving on Saturday with the Engineers without Borders. I will most likely not see Henry or Wilman because I’m leaving on the last guagua that leaves from Miches on Saturday, which leaves at 2.

Making the Frames

To make the frames, we hired a welder that lives in los Mameyes named Alé. He charged us RD $300 pesos per house, about 8 US dollars. If we ask him again to weld some frames, hopefully he will lower his price because as you see here, he actually hardly did any of the work and hired two younger guys to do it. As Darien and I learned from hiring someone from the ferreteria to cut the varilla, supervision is necessary so we camped out in white picnic chairs for a few hours to make sure that all the dimesions were correct. When I ordered the varilla to be cut from the ferreteria, I asked for the length of 20 feet to be cut into 1.3 m pieces (51 inches). When we picked up the varilla the next day, we saw that it had been cut to different lengths that were around 1.3 m. The employee had to recut them all over again. A back-breaking task because he was using a hand-saw. The 3/8" varilla frame consists of three straight pieces and three bent pieces that have legs that are 15 cm long. The day before, we had shown Alé the video on how to make them that Kelvin had given us to make sure he got the idea.

This is me practicing quality control.

The welders here use almost no protection from the sparks. When they are welding, they just close their eyes so they are not damaged. Luckily it didn't affect the quality of there work and we had 20 perfectly welded houses. Alé could make 20 frames in one day, as long as there is constant power of course.

Snorking Multimedia Overload!

Since I haven't been able to post many of the videos and pictures of our snorkeling adventures, due to a multitude of factors such as poor internet connections, power failures, several floods, computer inundations, and construction craziness, prepare for a multimedia overload!

This is a photo of rock boring urchins that are actually on top of a queen conch shell that is the size of a fist. That makes the urchins about the size of my fingernail!

This is me "rescuing" a hermit crab from the lobster nasa. I don't know if it actually made it all the way to the seafloor without cracking its shell or injuring itself in some other way. Oh well, I guess it could have met its end this way or to be eaten by the several lobsters that were in the nasa.
Six cushion stars of various shades aligned perfectly in a triangle. These guys were almost a foot across!

The first video is of the nurse shark that we saw. The second is of a jellyfish that Paul saw that was about the size of a fist. The last is a view of one of the lobster nasas under water. You can even see the lobsters!