Last Full Day in Moorea

Well-this was our last full day in Moorea. Tomorrow we get up, snorkel with the rays, hit the juice factory, then pack. We will head to Tahiti about 5PM, then board our flight for Los Angeles at 10 PM. If everything goes right we'll be in Cleveland ~10:30 P.M. on Sunday night. Tonight Louana cooked us a barbecue feast, and gave each us us a lei to take as a memento. Rough drafts of the research papers are due before the students go to bed-they will make it. I've had a great time, and I really think it's been a great learning experience for all involved.
-R. Londraville

I had so much fun in moorea... and i will definitely be coming back here sometime in my life. i have been on three of these trips for school and this one was definitely the most fun. all the people were great and i have made so many great memories. we all want to stay here! i will leave you with one quote:
"is that a crab... or is that a..."
-Laura Young-

I am definately not ready to leave Moorea. This has been the most incredible experience I`ve ever had. I`ve been telling everyone all week not to mention leaving because I will be so sad to come home. I hope we all keep in touch and if there are any skinks in Ohio you can bet that the "Lizard Group" will be out there trying to catch them. It won`t be the same without the amazing scenery, unbelievable stars and half naked Tahitian guys!! Can`t wait to come back...
-Sarah Young

Unfortunately our time here on Moorea has come to an end. I'm so incredibly sad to leave. Everyone in Tahiti is wonderful and you will never meet such nice people in your entire life. I would like to thank everyone that has been able to experience this breathtaking place with me. I especially would like to thank the fun, hardworking professors for making this trip possible. I think anyone who would love adventure and an intellectual experience at the same time should look into taking this class;
- Shawna Koch

This has been my first time out of the country and it has also been the best experience of my life. Every person on this island is so friendly! I think I have overcome the bugs! I do not want to leave yet and would consider to do further studies here. It has been the experience of a lifetime and I know I will be talking about this years to come. The professors and my classmates have treated me like family. The "lizard group" is hilarious and are insane lizard hunters! I will come back here again and I have no doubt in my mind! I can't wait until the next class!
-Heather Bickimer-

Dear Mom & Dad,
It's amazing here & I've been having so much fun so...I'm refunding my ticket. Hope you'll come visit-if not feel free to send care packages-just kidding! Seriously though, the time I've spent here is unmatched by any of my other travels. I cannot say enough good things about Moorea, the people, my fellow students, or the professors who have worked so diligently to make this the experience of a lifetime for all of us. With all of the laughs, smiles, blood, sweat, and hard work, I know we will all return home w/ memories that will last forever. I would recommend this trip to anyone and can say confidently that they will NOT be dissappointed. Thanks to everyone for such a great time!
"What it do?!"
-Brittany Heflin-

Well, the final bird count stands at 18; it surely was fun to find each one of them.
E. Wheland

I was afraid this day would come too soon. Moorea has expanded my imagination in a way i never thought possible. From eating the tahitian meals, catching lizards, watching Moorea and Criobe chase us in the truck, not knowing when Peter was joking or serious, swimming around the most beautiful coral I will ever be exposed to and hiking 1325ft. inbetween two beautiful summits it really was the experience of a lifetime. I have made alot of new friends that I hope to see more of and really got to know 3 wonderful professors. The people here are great, esp. our chef and her kids, they have such great spirits.
Im reall glad I took this opportunity. Thank you so much for everyone that made it happen.
Doni Doyle

Wow! There really too much to say, but I guess that I can manage to jot down a few notes. First of all, the beauty of this place is unlike anything that I have ever seen before. I am so glad that I took a chance and decided to come on this trip. It was as equally educational as it was fun. I learned a lot about the research process. I learned its ups and downs, like when one of your fishy test subjects decides he is too cool for water, covertly leaps out of his tank and begins making a run for it, only to meet an untimely demise. But we still managed to roll with it. This trip's recreational activities were fantastic! I loved every second of snorkeling, except for that charlie horse during our first trip out. Seeing exotic fish was one of my favorite parts of the trip: The Clearfin Turkeyfish, the Clownfish, the Moorish Idol, the Giant Moray...they were all amazing to see. Now a couple of obligatory shoutouts: Thanks Mom and Dad for the opportunity to come. I love you both! Jason and Sam, good luck with the new baby girl. Mallow (Kelly), I heart you so much! Thank you all for reading. GO CAVS!
-Sean Santangelo
P.S. Beware of sea cucumbers...they'll getcha!! HAHA!

For the last time: Publier le Message!

Day 8 Moorea

My name is Doni Doyle, I was chosen by Dr. Londraville to write tonight's blog. The same sugary cereal and boxed milk gets old after about the 4th day in a row so a few of us have been skipping breakfast and sleeping in an extra hour (shhh don't tell the Profs). In the morning both the lizard group and the fish group were working hard on their projects. The fish group finally finished all of there trials and are still analyzing their data (blenny pictures). The lizard group finished analyzing their gecko and skink data after stretching 4 moth skinks (Lipinia noctua). As the fish group went to run their trail on Blenny number 18 they found that it had tried to escape, Sean found him on the sidewalk in the sun covered thoroughly by ants. Obviously the fish didn't make it. In the afternoon Dr. Londraville went for a dive in the channel, seeing a few sea turtles. While he was diving the rest of the fish group was still hard at work analyzing their pictures. While the lizard group was also hard at work Dr. N invited us to go on a hike past the Belvedere lookout to a ridge between the two Mt. Summits called Mouaroa and Tamarutoofa. The hike took 2 hours to make it to the ridge but was completely worth it, for the view of Moorea from one beach all the way across to the other. Another cool part of our hike was when we came across the BamBoo forest, it was incredible to see how tall they get with their leaves only on top and the ground completely covered by thin peices of bamboo. The hike was uphill the entire way, so near the end we were completely exhausted, luckily we made it back just in time for the perfect dinner of stirfry and salad with the Tahitian dressing. That dinner definitely hit the spot. After dinner everyone prepared for the night snorkel that Dr. Londraville was nice enough to guide us on. On the truck ride to the night snorkel at Whitehouse all of the students realized that they were under a beautiful star filled sky about to snorkel in Tahiti. We were all extremely excited. On the night snorkel we saw plenty of shallow coral which we barely made it over along with a variety of fish different then what we have seen during the day in the same area. We saw alot of crabs, alot of sea cucumbers, and a few sleeping fish. While snorkeling in waist deep water I noticed a orange and white striped fish with really long pectoral fin rays, I yelled for Dr. Londraville and he thought I was dying, when he found out I had only seen a "cool fish" everyone swam on, later when we put our heads up and were doing a head count I found another fish with the pectoral fin rays and pointed it out, Dr. Londraville informed us that it was a venemous Clearfin Turkey Fish (Pterois radiata).
The Previous picture is a clown fish in a sea anemone.
The question was asked of what all the students are doing with their majors. Laura Young plans on attending graduate school for Zoology. Shawna Koch is using her biology major to hopefully get into Vet. School. Sean Santangelo is doing secondary education in biology and chemistry to teach high school science. Heather Bickimer is specailizing in Animal Physiology. Sarah Young has a degree in sociology and criminology and is working on Chemistry for her intrest in forensics. Brittany Heflin and Doni Doyle are using their biology to hopefully get into Medical School.

Day 7 Moorea

Well, the students are slaving away on their research and so I (Dr. Londraville) volunteered to blog tonight. Dr. Niewiarowski gave me permission to say that he agreed with anything I wrote-so he says I should get the best office in our new building. But I digress...
These are a fantastic students, and fantastic people. One of the benefits of doing a class like this (and there are many) is that you get to spend time with students outside of the classroom, and really find out who they are. These people are excited about Biology and really milking this opportunity for all it is worth. That of course includes Ethel, our one ‘alumni’ member, who has been as excited and cooperative as any 20-year old (or more). Lest you think it's all fun in the sun, they also know when to hunker down and work, which is what they are doing right now. Soon after we arrived, we have been on a schedule of 7 AM breakfast, 8AM in the field until noon (lunch), work in the lab until dinner (6), then work more until whenever (some are staying up until 1 AM). The fish people have been spending their time either hunched over scanning a rock wall trying to catch blennies (imagine a very slippery, very fast, very small fish) or slaving over computers analyzing digital pictures of said blennies changing color. The lizard people have been in the tropical forest catching all sorts of lizards (moth skinks are particularly elusive) and then stretching them over different surfaces (Teflon, glass) to measure how much force they exert with their toe pads. In between meals and work, they’ve been keeping in touch with you at home (tip: buy stock in SKYPE). We’ve managed a few excursions too-the rays, various snorkeling spots, waterfall hikes, etc. The food has been fantastic-it’s quite a privilege to sit down to a great meal after a long day in the sun. Tonight we had a traditional Tahitian meal, with pork, chicken with creamed spinach, taro, yams, raw fish in lime juice salad, and coconut bread. They also gave us some fermented coconut milk, which came in a bottle (so we thought we should drink it). Our French hosts got a giggle out of that-it turns out it was a sauce for one of the dishes. It’s OK, I usually settle down to dinner with a tall glass of gravy.
We’ll finish the trip with a night snorkel tomorrow night, round the island ride on Friday and more rays and juice factory on Saturday. Even though Peter loathes shopping, everybody has managed to buy a few mementos. Keep the comments coming-it’s always news when one of you posts.
Thanks for loaning us your kids. You did a good job raising them.

Day 6 Moorea

After a long night for the lizard group everyone was able to sleep in until 7am this morning, with the exception of Brittany and Rich who once again braved the slightly cold water and the early morning hours at whitehouse. Here they collected the last four rockskippers needed to complete our sample size. After returning with the rockskippers, the fish group began running trials on their fish where they placed an aquarium in a black box and examined rate of color change with variation in water temperature. Meanwhile, the lizard group worked with their collected skinks massing, weighing, xeroxing, and stretching them on glass and teflon. Later on, both groups moved on with analysis and graphing of their materials. Both groups worked tediously throughout the rest of the morning until lunch. After lunch the group was escorted by three other researchers here at Criobe to go snorkel with the stingrays and black tip reef sharks. The highlight of the day included using fish to entice the friendly rays to playfully interact with us. (some of the rays were as big as a large hula hoop) The large number of sharks that swam around us were exquisite to watch. The sharks didn't bother the group much but many of us stalked them taking picture after picture. Another exciting find included a large moray eel.
After swimming with the sharks and rays we came back in time for a delicious dinner with our afternoon tour guides, which was capped off by a surprise dessert of chocolate cake. This seemed to excite everyone after we had worked up quite an appetite during our long day. Both groups then continued to work on our projects until late into the night (especially the lizard group who jokingly claim that they need to drink coffee since Peter works them 24/7.) The blog may seem rather short tonight, but we are all working to exhaustion, and the excitement of today's excursion has all of us worn out! Stay tuned for tomorrow's happenings!

Day 5 Moorea

The students in the Tropical Vertebrate Zoology class being conducted in Moorea have had their say and now it is time for voice of the only non-student, non-swimmer, techno-phobic participant to be heard. This is great and all of you should consider coming to Moorea the next time this class is offered by Rich and Peter! All 7 of the students have been working so hard at their respective projects: why just this evening I saw someone walk by the lab carrying a rock skipper encased in a make-shift carrying case made of 2 plastic soda bottles. Who knows what fate awaited that fish as the students in the fish project tested their hypothesis about the relationship between temperature and the color of the fish. The other group - the lizard people - are not being shortchanged when it comes to having fun. A common activity in the evening is for the students to compare the numbers and locations of all their mosquito bites - bites obtained while they were out "noosing" geckos and skinks in some of the most beautiful forest locations imaginable. Perhaps Peter will figure out how to upload the video he created of the "lizard" people doing the Capture the Skink Dance in the ancient sacred area near the research station. Parents, you might not believe how fast and nimble your offspring are as they leap around the rocks trying to capture the elusive skinks - which have the amazing ability to drop their tails on command!
Each day seems to have its own particular highlight, and today was no exception. The "fish" students stumbled out of bed before sunrise this morning so that they could be "en locale" to catch their rock skippers at the first approach of daylight. The "lizard" people got to sleep in until 7 AM, and had a leisurely breakfast before heading to the lab to "stretch" skinks on a custom-made skink stretching machine - a machine designed to record the clinging ability of the skinks. Just as the work at the lab was coming to an end, the "lizard" people heard the "fish" people returning from their morning of slaving away in the bay. They couldn't talk fast enough as they told the following; Shawna had been walking on the beach when she observed that she was standing on a fish. She called to Rich to describe the fish, and the more adjectives she used to tell him about the fish, the more concerned he seemed to be. The upshot of the story is that Shawna had been standing on one of the most poisonous fish in the ocean! (the stonefish) She is just fine, and she already e-mailed the news about the fish to her mom, so that "mom" would not be concerned, but it surely did make for some exciting conversation around here.
If you are not a bird lover, read no further. However, if you are curious about the birds that can be seen on the island of Moorea, keep reading! There are great crested terns, grey ducks, common waxbills, brown noddies, chestnut-brested manakins, common mynas, red-vented bulbuls, Pacific reef herons, silvereyes, and swamp harriers all over the place -a "twitcher's" paradise! (I got permission from the "fish" and "lizard" professors to mention the birds that are around here. They haven't been looking at the birds - they are only looking at their favorite subjects!)
To all of you compassionate folks who want to hear about the treatment the poor kitty received after fracturing its humerus: The kitty was taken to the vet this morning after spending a relatively calm night encased in Shawna's makeshift splint. The vet gave the kitty some pain medication and a sling and pronounced that the kitty would be back to normal in 2 weeks. Everyone here was so relieved about the happy ending to the story.
This part of the note is to our most faithful "blogger" - Beverly! We love your responses. In answer to your last question, we are eating well and frequently. Today for lunch the cooks announced that the dessert consisted of ice cream and ice cream cones. You can imagine the squeals of delight from all the American ice cream lovers. Tonight's dinner consisted of chicken stew over rice, a salad, bananas and the Chef Rich's cookies, straight from the local grocery store. Thanks, Rich!

Day 4 Moorea

We started off with Laura finding a giant green eyed spider in the girls bathroom today. She just walked out non-chalantly saying "There is a huge spider in the bathroom." then went out hungry to get breakfast. Heather and Sarah were in the bathroom watching Brittany brave it out with the spider. Then we ate our usual cereal, cheese, and bread breakfast at 7 in the morning. The group split up after breakfast to work on our indvidual projects. The lizard group went out to catch more skinks up to belvedere trail. In the first fifteen minutes we had about four lizards caught. Peter our professor took a video of the group running around like they found a million dollar prize to get the skinks. Everyone in the group today was able to catch a lizard. The skinks were just walking right into Heathers hands. Sarah was screaming and jumping up and down on her first successful catch today. Doni had a great gecko catch with our gecko noose that was created by Peter. The group caught 11 skinks and 3 geckos today. We were very proud! The fish group set out on bikes to White House to catch more blennies. At first it seemed like there were no blennies out today, but as time passed, we became better and better at finding them in their hiding spots. All together the group caught 3 blennies; the blennies were getting good at getting away from us! Poop dog and Moorea (the other dog) followed us out to swim today again. Moorea decided that she wanted an afternoon snack and she was chasing chickens for a while. Surprisingly, she caught a chicken! She stashed it in a secret hiding spot and retrieved it later. Because of a chafing issue, the fish group walked their bikes back to the research center. On the way back, we passed a big party, and were tempted to go join in...after all, today was election day and the entire island were off work partying. After lunch the two groups united and went for a hike up the mountain to see the waterfall. Since it is the dry season, it was more like a trickle of water, but the hike was fun! We came home and cleaned up for dinner and after eating something tragic happened: the little orange kitten (Laura calls it hopper) fell off the bench and broke his leg. Luckily, Shawna was there to save the day. She is a vet tech, and with the help of Brittany and Laura (who were sooo nervous) was able to set the bone and put it in a sling. Laura and Brittany's hearts were racing during the entire procedure, but Shawna just acted like it was nothing. The kitten is on its way to the vet tomorrow morning. We all just hung out and worked on out projects at night after the kitten scare. In a previous blog, we were asked what are projects were, so here is a brief description. The lizard group is collecting different kinds of lizards: two different kinds of skinks and some geckos. With these lizards, they will be examining the effect that temperature, body size, sex, and other aspects of the lizards has on the ability of the lizard to cling to a substrate. The fish group is working on a species of fish called a blennie. The blennie is a rockskipper, that jumps from rocks to rocks and hides in small cracks in the rock wall of the ocean. The blennie changes color according to its substrate (an observation made by the group while here). The group is testing the effect of temperature on the color change ability of the fish. To find out what crazy things we are up to tomorrow, keep reading!

Day 3 Moorea

After an early start at 7 am for breakfast, Rich and Peter announced that the boat would push off at 8:30 to go snorkel with the sharks and rays. And PUSH off we did, but not without problems getting the boat’s second engine to start, and Rich having to MacGuyver a new snorkel mask setup for Shawna before leaving. However, Rich and Peter finally got us on our way, and we were off. On the trip out, the scenery was breathtaking, and clear blue breaks in the water allowed us to easily see the reef. On our journey, we passed by many glass bottom bungalows that sat over the water, and even saw the scene of a shipwreck. Once we arrived at our destination, Rich was concerned about the wind and rough current, and decided that it wasn’t safe today, and we’d have to try another day. So instead, Peter piloted us to Coconut Grove, where we snorkeled reefs on both sides of the channel. After returning for lunch, the groups split up to work on their individual projects. Rich, Brittany, Sean, Laura, and Shawna bicycled to White House to take another census and collect specimens for the fish project. We needed food for our previously collected Rockskippers, so Rich snorkeled for sea urchins. He got one alright, and a painful lesson as well after being spined by an urchin- but hey chicks dig scars! Just kidding Mrs. Londraville. Moorea and Poop Dog accompanied us to White House, sprinting the whole journey, and swimming the entire time. Next, we’re going to teach them to ride bikes and enter them in a doggy triathlon! Peter, Sarah, Doni, and Heather went to Belvedere to hunt skinks, but unfortunately the baby chicken had more luck catching a lizard than they did. Then, they rode in the back of the truck through the rain to an archaeological dig site, where they had more luck. Hijinks ensued as the group hilariously attempted to wrangle up some skinks by hand. After several attempts, and many weird looks from bystanders, they emerged victorious catching 4 skinks and 3 geckos. Luckily, they made it back safely as they quickly learned the danger of insane moped drivers. After, attempting a chilly experiment, they were stopped cold in their tracks, when they realized two of their skinks had met an icy demise. All the while, the fish group were working away, when Laura and Brittany decided to play with fire. It seems they stumbled through a hill of fiery red ants, and they have the welts to prove it! After a good old American dinner of Spaghetti and much craved chocolate cookies courtesy of Rich, everyone continued to work on their projects, and went to bed looking forward to another early start tomorrow.