SEAmester Student Diaries
"diaries sent from sea"

April 2, 2007

Christen Gundlach
UMass Amherst

We arrived at our anchorage off the island of Trinidad with great anticipation after a multi-day passage filled with exotic stories of cricket, doubles, and steel panning, not to mention the promise of showers and cold drinks. We spent our first day exploring the city of Port-of-Spain, taking in museums, gingerbread architecture, Soca music, and the unique fusion of East and West Indian culture. After a dinner of roti (curried chicken or meat wraps topped with mango chutney) and doubles (gooey chickpea curry layered between puffs of fried bread), we headed to a local hangout to hear a famous steel pan band play their unique brand of Trinidadian music.

The next morning, we all piled into a van that took us across the island to the beach of Maracas. We tried our hand at cricket with a trio of Bangladeshis in town for the World Cup match the night before, hurling the ball into the sand in front of a batter defending the balanced sticks of the wicket. Walks on the sandy beach and a dip in the sea were followed by another local favorite, Bake-n-Shark, a sort of fried shark sandwich, and the supreme luxury of ice-cold beverages. At sunset, we went on a boat cruise of the Trinidadian mangroves, the unique salt coast ecosystem we've been studying in depth in our Bio Survey class. A perfect rainbow appeared in the sky as hundreds of brilliantly colored scarlet ibises flew in to roost for the night, filling us all with a profound sense of the amazing things this trip has allowed us to witness.

We then sailed to the deserted island of Chacachacari, in sight of the Venezuelan mainland. Home to a leper colony for nearly sixty years, it now sits completely abandoned, except for a lone pair of lighthouse keepers. As we pulled in, we could see the now-ruined homes of the doctors and nuns who cared for the lepers, half-reclaimed by the jungle during the twenty years since the colony closed. We spent a day carefully exploring this huge settlement, finding building after building filled with forgotten medical records, rusty bed springs, and shreds of curtains still hanging from the shattered-glass windows. With the haunting history of the island palpable around us, we braved the dark to spend the night camping ashore in the remnants of a large hall, fortified by a barbecue and a bonfire.

At seven, we were awoken to find we had all survived, and boarded the boat to begin our longest passage to date. New challenges were presented to us- instead of navigating by GPS, we were to plot our course using a Dutchman's Log (which measures our speed by throwing a piece of grapefruit peel into the water and timing how long it takes to pass a mark), sextants, and our course steered. We also had our first round of exams and the added responsibility of becoming Junior Watch Officers, taking the organization of delegation of watch tasks into our own hands. Days of pouring rain and high winds were followed by days of seemingly endless calm, but we finally arrived at the Dominican Republic on Friday, docking outside the fifteenth-century walls of the oldest European settlement in the New World.

After our history lessons on the disparity and strife between Haitian and Dominican culture, we were all curious to see what this beautiful tropical island had in store for us. We went on a cultural scavenger hunt through the heart of the city, testing our Spanish conversational skills and exploring the ruins of fortresses and monestaries. Yesterday, we tearfully said goodbye to our dear friend Kaytee, who returned to her home in Chicago to get married. Congratulations, Kaytee, and we'll think of you every time we only count to nine! We walked over to the Faro de Colon, an extravagant concrete monstrosity dedicated to the ambivalent history of Christopher Columbus and colonialism, then to the Taino caverns of Tres Ojas and a traditional cock fight, wrapping up with a group dinner out along the waterfront. We set sail this evening for a two week journey to Georgia, starting our northerly trip up the east coast to familiar territory.

I'm off to a history class in a shady square, greetings and love from all aboard.