A memorable birthday.

It's been quite a while since I updated...things have been getting pretty busy over here. I was contemplating changing projects for a while after talking to a marine specialist appropriately named Seabird -- I wanted to study the effects on coral biodiversity of the ongoing outbreak of Acanthaster planci, huge coral-eating starfish. Unfortuately, even though the GSI's loved my idea, the professors like my original topic too much and won't let me change...so back to comparing Great Barrier Reef and Moorea coral biodiversity instead.
So the last couple of weeks have basically been spent doing work, with a few minor adventures here and there (kayaks to snack stands, swims, snorkels, etc.). One thing I've really been appreciating is how friendly the Polynesians are. One guy named Ariitea has made it his goal to entertain us, and drives half way around the island to pick a few of us up and take us back to his amazing house with a pool table, beautiful island art, and a gorgeous view of Tahiti. Pablo, who has been teaching the guys some Marquesan dancing, is so delighted to have new friends that he has devoted every Sunday to us. Last Sunday he invited eight of us over to his friend's pension (family run hotel) right next to Temae public beach. This place had a salt water pool (so we the choice between the "big pool," the ocean, or the little pool) and paddle tennis courts, so we spent the afternoon hanging out there and having a barbecue on our own private little beach. The owner's story was typical of many people's here: he was moving back to France from Vietnam as a child, had a stopover in Tahiti, and never left.
In other funny random news, one of my classmates, Stosh, is working on a project studying clams, which happen to be a delicacy here (and highly illegal to eat, as they are protected). He set up an experiment in which he spent hours collecting clams and repositioning them by a public beach to see how they their predation rate changed, and returned a few days later to find that predation had indeed increased...not by fish, but by people! Someone had eaten his project. And this is where you realize how small Moorea is: turns out Irma knows the person who ate the clams, as they bragged to her about all the clams they got, and Irma yelled at them in defense of poor Stosh.
Besides that, dance practice has been getting very intense, considering we have only a few days before the big performance, which is this Saturday. The dance teachers want it all to be perfect, as we are the first international group of students to ever perform Tahitian dancing in a cultural event like this one, so it had better be good! Apparently they are all really proud of us.
Last weekend was the big weekend of birthdays. It's funny, only three of us will have had birthdays here, and they were all clustered together: Oct 17, 25, and 26. For Vanessa's birthday on the 17th, we had a big party in the Fare Pote'e outside with music and dancing. Some people decided to dance on the table, and we actually managed to break one of the tables (it was old), which was pretty funny. We were all afraid that Irma would kill us, but she thankfully never did.
This past Friday night, a few of us went over to Ariitea's, then Saturday night we had another evening outside in the Fare Pote'e. One thing that's nice out here is the weather never cools down too much in the evening, so you can be outside without a sweater...in fact I haven't worn a sweater or long pants since we got here. Sunday, which was Danielle's 21st birthday, the cooking group made us a cake for the both of us with "21" written in chocolate on it. Once the clock hit 9 pm, midnight in California, the "Happy birthday's" began (which, when you live in a house of 22 people, is quite often).
My actual birthday was probably my most memorable yet. It's funny how on their 21st birthdays, most people go out to a bar, use their ID for the first time, and buy themselves a drink (and some then drink way too much and get very sick). While I wasn't expecting that to happen here in quiet little Moorea, I wasn't quite expecting what actually DID happen.
I went out with Al that day to do some field work in Ma'atea, on the southern side of the island. We were snorkeling right off the private property of Jimmy B., a funny little old American who moved to Moorea about 40 years ago and is now caretaker for a very wealthy family's vacation home. It was pretty windy out, but we decided it would be fine, and set out pushing our kayak through the waves. As we got to deeper waters, I clambered into the kayak, but as Al got in after me, the whole thing toppled over. All our stuff (pencils, measuring tapes, clipboards, cameras, etc.) went floating away, and we managed to grab everything...except for Al's hundred dollar fins, which were swept away by the current within minutes. Discouraged, we nevertheless decided to continue on. We paddled on for about 15 minutes to the barrier reef, crossing a deep channel on the way. Once arrived, we tied our boat to a pole, and took turns doing our field work as we only had one pair of fins. Meanwhile the waves were crashing nearby and the strong current kept tugging at the kayak. Al actually managed to break one of my fins, but we were able to fix it. The reef out there was probably the best I've seen. I went snorkeling around for an hour, and everything was so vibrant and diverse: large purple Montipora species, big bulky Porites, delicately branched Acropora, and tons of intricate little encrusting corals everywhere. There were so many fish out there, including swarms of blue fish that pulsated around corals in clouds. I saw a beautiful red octopus out there, and got freaked out by a 2m long black-tipped reef shark that came out of nowhere, which are harmless but definitely have that stereotypical scary-looking shark shape. When I got back to the kayak, Al made a reassuring comment, "I think our boat is sinking!" Sure enough, there was definitely a few inches of water in the ancient kayak that hadn't been there before. She quickly finished her field work, and then we began our journey back to shore.
By then the rain had started to fall and the wind had gotten a lot stronger: we were in a little, old, sinking kayak about 20 minutes from shore, with waves running perpendicular to shore and the sky darkening by the minute. We managed to move forward for about 2 minutes, then suddenly a wave pushed us over. The problem was not only that the current was hitting the boat from the side, but also that the kayak had filled with water internally, and thus had no balance at all. By reflex we grabbed the oars and our data sheets first, then were able to collect everything else. Thankfully there were large coral heads around, so we were able to climb back into the kayak by standing on it. This time we only paddled on one side of the boat, but the current was so strong that we still weren't really moving forward. This time we managed to stay onboard for about 5 minutes, and then we were pushed over again. We lost all of the measuring tapes we had brought as well as Al's water bottle, but once again managed to save the oars and the data sheets. We realized that there was no way to paddle back to shore, especially since there were no more corals to stand on to climb back in, and that we had to swim it back in. Not an easy feat considering only I had fins, and that we were lugging an overturned, water-filled kayak as well as oars and clipboards with our valuable data. It took us at least 15 minutes of swimming hard against the current to get back to shallow waters. We swam over a deep channel where we could no longer see the bottom, and although I was delighted to see a spotted eagle ray, Al saw a few hammerhead sharks below us, which are known to be aggressive towards humans. We finally made it back to shore, where Jimmy welcomed us and told us he'd called our GSI when he could no longer see us as he was worried about the storm. We took showers in an awesome little outdoor shower hut, and then Jimmy made us hot chocolate and provided us with toast and peanut butter while telling us tales of Moorea, shipfaring, and drowning. Anyway, all is well that ends well, and all I have to remember the adventure by is some coral scrapes, a large bruise, and a good story to tell.
When we got back to the dorms, we ran to dance practice and then had the most delicious dinner yet: at my request, the cooking group made Greek food, including hummus, Greek salad, pita from scratch, stuffed eggplant, and Spanakopita. I was given a glass of wine with my dinner, and then the cooking group brought in an amazing cake and everyone sang. I spent the rest if the evening exhausted and just hanging out in the living room, with no energy left to celebrate. The day had ended up being exciting in a very different way than I had anticipated, and definitely a memorable one.