Kirsten's Adventures: October 2008

All is well in sunny St. Kitts! Hurricane Omar passed with some damage, and several hours of winds, rain, and excitement. Officially, it was a Category 3 storm, by in all honesty the windstorms of western Washington far surpassed this wee hurricane. While it wasn't nearly as big and exciting as I had hoped, beaches have changed shape entirely and many of the Caribbean side businesses were hit hard by the brunt of the winds. Nonetheless, businesses and beach bars were open hours after the rains stopped, despite upturned tables, ponds in parking areas, and waist-deep sand inside the buildings. NOTHING keeps the Kittitian bars down!

Below are pictures from the past several months. I'm halfway through fourth semester, so officially halfway through my time in St. Kitts!! Time flies!

Wee little Green sea turtle hatchling!! They make all of the work and lack-of-sleep worth it :)

These three photos are from this years Agriculture Days. Agriculture Days is an annual celebration of St. Kitts' Independence. This year was the 25th Anniversary of St. Kitts' independence, and the SKSTMN was given a booth on one of the main stages. For 3 days, we taught children, spoke to parents, and gave presentations on sea turtle conservation. We developed quite the following of children :)

Agriculture Days: This is Inches. Inches is in the Junior Military and was our booth's "enforcer." He made sure everyone behaved themselves, and kept us entertained in the process!

Agriculture Days: Sea turtles are clearly the COOLEST things EVER. Ask these kiddos!

One of our tagged hawksbills. This one taunted us during in-water. Since he was already tagged, we didn't need to catch him, and he knew it. He decided to pose for a photo.

In-water tagging! This hawksbill does not look pleased with me...

One of the perks of working on the Sea Turtle project is getting to visit some of the most remote, beautiful beaches on St. Kitts! This was sunset on one such beach, where a total of 7 turtles had nested recently.