Plan B

The last two days have been very windy. Friday night the Plan B crew came ashore and we went to meet them at the SandBar. The Plan B is a research vessel from the Waitt Institute. http://waittinstitute.org/WID/index.htm It is in the TCI doing an underwater magnetic survey of the Endymion site, an English warship that sank in the early 19th century. This is the maiden voyage of the ship and the they are using this as a shake down, or trial, survey. The museum was very lucky to have been in the right place at the right time to make arrangements to work this out. There is no alcohol allowed on board, so the crew came in for some R and R. At 5:30 when I went down, everyone was having a good time. By the time I had come home to get the family and we all went down to the SandBar for dinner, everyone had had a lot more R.

We have been on island for ten days. December is an incredibly busy month for the museum. Next week a visiting scholar is coming to look at the duho in our collection. The day after she leaves, a curatorial intern is coming to evaluate our conservation and storage program. She will be here for three weeks. We have had a lot to prepare for. On Friday I had to record a radio program. The three minute spot took two and a half hours. In the end, I did not get it in on time for the Saturday program.

On Saturday, we removed the duho from its protective case at the museum and cleaned the lab. I also opened one of our display cases where we had on object fall during Museum Day. The cases in the museum have not been cleaned in at least seven years. So I took the opportunity to remove each object, dusted, and vacuumed the case out.

I could work all the time and not do everything I need to at the museum. I am trying very carefully to balance work and not work, which is partly why we came to a dessert island. In the afternoon we went to White Sands Beach to snorkel with Deborah and Thomas. Supposedly, this is one of the best spots on the island. In this location there is a large coral head. Swimming around it, you can see all manner of sea creatures and sea life. You name it, you can see it. Remember its been very windy.

I began to think that I would blog about what it must be like to swim in an aquarium. It was unbelievably beautiful. I was swimming with Davis. About half way around the coral head the currents swept Davis and I onto and over the coral. It was very disorienting and we quickly went from swimming in 10 feet of water to a few inches of water. There were large fan coral and fire coral everywhere. I started thinking that I would blog about how Davis and I were hospitalized after being drug over the coral. We managed to get across in the waves. However, I did strike my arm on a piece of fire coral. When you begin to snorkel, you are taught not to touch anything, especially the coral. The oils in your skin can kill a hundred years of coral growth in a few hours. On the other hand. People say the fire coral will burn like a sting from a two pound bee. The oils from the coral leave large welts and burn marks. And you know what. They were right.

Once we got across the coral, I sent Davis to shore. Deneen had come out of the water almost as soon as we had gotten in. The waves were so big that I could not see where Lucas was. I swam back out and found Lucas swimming around the back side of the coral.

A note about snorkeling. When I am in the water with my head down I have never had a concern about anything. The bottom of the ocean is a very peaceful place. Floating in the waves is very relaxing. Occasionally when I stick my head above water, I get very freaked out about how far away from shore I am, how big the waves are, or especially that I have lost track of someone swimming with me.

Deneen was really freaked out about the conditions and still today is trying to get me to agree that it was dangerous and a bad decision to go snorkeling yesterday. We were just having this discussion. Lucas on the other hand, said that this was the best day of his life. He saw a lobster, two trumpet fish, what may have been a small sand shark, a blue fish about three feet long, then ten more huge fish three feet long. He keeps talking on and on about how cool it was. Deneen keeps talking on and on about how dangerous it was. Maybe it was somewhere in between. But not very dangerous, just freaky to us novices.

In the evening, after snorkeling, Martin and I went to the first practice of our new band. Our first date is New Years Eve. This went well. Martin said that it was cooler than he thought it would be. Today he started to work on learning Jamie's bass parts.

At the end of this wonderful day, we invited Deborah and Thomas over for dinner and video games. In the middle of an intense Xbox football game on the LCD projector, half of the electricity in our house went out. Our use of electricity - three TVs, three video games, three air conditioners - has evidently taxed our service and we melted one of the legs of our main breaker.

Today is Sunday. We got up and could not cook, and it was very hot. This was a little hard to deal with so we went to the cruise center to swim and eat at Margaritaville. On the way there, Martin said, “This is the first day that it has felt like we really live here.” A breakthrough.