The view from the boat last week.  My friend Johanna took this and all the pictures below (besides the Monitor Lizard) and was kind enough to share since I am afraid to take my non waterproof camera out on the boat.

Well I finally got my first Palauan sunburn.  I guess I probably jinxed myself by putting sunburn in the blog title.  Anyway I went into the mangroves on Monday and I figured I could forgo the sunscreen on my shins since i'd be in the trees.  Unfortunately I failed to factor in the kayak trip to and from the groves.  I didn't even know it was possible to sunburn your shins, but as my super cool tan lines proved, for a person as white as me it is possible to burn just about anywhere.  Lesson learned, and only a mild burn so hopefully my first will also be my last Palauan sunburn.

We got some good pictures but they are on the forest service work
camera so you have to settle for a google image.  It looked just like
this though!

I spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday helping wrap up the mangrove project.  We got to kayak to the groves on Monday which was beautiful.  We were about an hour north of Koror on the big island of Babelthuap (Yep it's actually called that.  I can't help but think of Star Wars).  Lots of rolling jungle covered hills and turquoise ocean views.   About half way through the kayak we looked over and saw Arius, one of the Palauans with us, in the water repeatedly bashing something with a long bamboo poll and occasionally stabbing at the mystery item with a machete.  I of course instantly thought crocodile, but it turned out to be a manta ray, a Palauan dinner favorite.  This was my first time meeting Arius so I didn't know it yet but the dude has some serious killing skills.  By the end of our three days in the mangroves he would catch a ray, 2 giant mangrove crabs (they are about a foot long at least), and 4 fish.  We got to visit site farther into the mangroves this week which meant paddling up a river (which was cold!  The first cold water I've felt in Palau).  Again I am thinking crocodiles, and no matter how many times we asked the Palauans if there were crocodiles around we never got a serious answer.  They just kept telling us the crocodiles like white meat and then giggling a lot.  Helpful.  We finally concluded that since Palauans are generally as freaked out about crocodiles as we are, the fact that they were going up the river was proof it was probably croc free.  Very reassuring logic.  We did see a bunch of monitor lizards though, (the first of which Arius proclaimed a crocodile which lead to me and Rich "dashing" through the mud and prop roots to see it only to find a lizard and a Palauan laughing at us).  They are related to Kimono Dragons and can get up to 5 feet long, but the ones we saw were in the 2 foot range.  I really liked working in the mangroves.  It's such a beautiful an strange place.  It looks like I might get to do a project for Rich (the forest service dude) looking at fish populations in the mangroves while I am here which would mean a lot more time playing the the mud and climbing around in trees.

Corals on the Wall at Short Drop-off.

Me on the don't throw up dive mission at
Short Drop-off.

Up until this week the water has been really calm, and since there aren't very many beaches here you don't really see many waves, so I had kind of forgotten that I am living and traveling on the ocean.  The water has been really rough this week though and suddenly it became very apparent that Palau is surrounded by the OCEAN!  I am learning the delicate art of avoiding bruising your tailbone when the boat slams down off the top of a wave.  It's a battle to see who gets stuck in the more jarring front seats, although they usually take pity on the foreigners and put us in the back.  I am proud to say that I managed not to get sea sick this week, or at least not to throw up this week.  It got kind of bad one day when they left me to guard the boat for 2 hours and I wasn't feeling very good to start with and then the boat crashed up and down for 2 hours and I was feeling pretty terrible.  They finally returned and I was so happy to see them until they told me we had to wait another hour and a half for the cameras they had placed to film.  Bummer. I didn't think I'd make it on the boat that long so I jumped in for a dive and felt way better

School of fish at short drop-off.

Fan Coral at Short Drop-off.

A school of Butterfly Fish at Short Drop-off

I got to do another 3 dives this week so I am up to 20 dives now!  My newest dive discovery is the magic of the pee break.  I always like being in the woods because there is no need to find a bathroom, instead you can just pee behind any tree. Turns out diving can one up that, now I don't even have to find a tree.  Amazing!  We got to do a fun diving and fishing while we waited for cameras to record Chris's coral predation experiments (the stick pieces of coral to the reef with putty and see how long it takes for things to eat them).  The site is called short drop off and basically it's a reef along the edge of a shelf that drops a few hundred feet into nothing.  Usually we are working back on reef but this time we dove along the edge so you can look at all the cool things on the wall of the reef as you float along and there is nothing but dark blue below you as far as you can see.  There were a lot of school of fish and some really beautiful fan corals that look like purple and pink ferns.  At one point there was a corner we couldn't see around and school after school of fish started swarming past us and I just kept waiting for the shark to come around the corner chasing them.  Still haven't seen one, I think we are going to try to go to a spot called blue corner soon where you usually see schools of sharks!

Mandarin Lake.

Coral Below and Jungle above at Mandarin Lake.

Jelly Fish!

Yesterday we stopped by a place called Mandarin Lake to snorkel on our way back from the field.  It was Chris's birthday and we were working on a Saturday so we figured we deserved a reward. They call it a lake but it is really more of an enclosed lagoon.  You weave your way through the rock Island labyrinth and there are these lakes that have small canals leading to the ocean but are mostly surrounded by jungle.  We parked at the lake mouth and then swam the short channel into the lake.  It was pretty weird to be snorkeling and looking at bright tropical fish and corals and then as you get closer to the shore there are fallen trees and rocks and springs feeding the lake.  There were lots of school of fish and you could see the different water temperatures mixing (it looked like oil or something floating in the water).  We had the place to ourselves, and with all the birds calling and streams gurgling it was down right peaceful.  It was hard to tear ourselves away but we eventually got cold from all the streams feeding the lake and had to head back to the boat for lunch and birthday beers for Chris.  Not a bad day of work!

Me with the jelly fish!  The ones you find in the lakes have lost there need for stingers so they are safe to be near.

The Corals at Mandarin lake.

Schools of tiny fish were everywhere in the lake.

I found a room in a house and am moving in on Tuesday.  It's the home of an older woman and her grandson and I have my own room and bathroom in the back.  It's not too far from work and on the quieter side of town which will be nice.  She seems like a very sweet Palauan woman and has offered to let me come with her to her farm in the next state north of Koror on the weekend if I want to weed and hangout.  Should be a great chance to learn a little more about Palau and the culture here, although I am going to miss my AC!  I guess I'll leave it there.  I am headed to exercise group soon(I think I told some people about it before I left and we were thinking it would be old ladies doing aerobics.  Turns out it's cross fit.  I nearly died last week!) and need to prepare myself for the sweat attack that is coming.  Hope everyone is well!  Much love,

Katharine

the view out my window, though slightly modified so you don't see the aquarium I overlook that is often filled with Korean and Japanese tour groups. 

behind PICRC

Good news, I made it to Palau.  I know everyone was worried I might show up and find a shack and a half sunken raft (or at least I was a little worried), but Palau International Coral Reef Center does actually exist!  Not only does it exist, but they even had a foggie notion of who I was and why I was knocking on their gate at 4am.  I am settling in nicely and so far everyone has been really friendly and kind.  The first Palauan I met was the woman sitting next to me on my flight.  She was from Palau but lives in Salem Oregon and instantly insisted on giving me a ride to PICRC.  By the time she dropped me off, her and her sister and best friend had given me a tour of town, told me a list of at least 3 cousins who worked at PICRC and whom I should say hello to, invited me to church, assured me I would love it here, and left me with their phone number. That was probably the nicest welcome I have ever received in a new country.

Behind PICRC

I haven't found housing yet but no one seems to worried about it so I'm not either.  Hopefully I will have something by the end of the week.  Someones niece has a room for me but I just have to track her down.  Until then I am staying at PICRC.  It's at the end of a chunk of land that sticks out into the ocean, which I can see from my window, and just a 10 minute walk from town.  Town really isn't too exciting though (or nice) so I have mostly been avoiding it.  It's got restaurants, convenient stores, 3 grocery stores, a few hotels, schools, a church and a couple of bars.  I went in to get groceries the other day at "rush hour" and the one road was packed.  There are no traffic lights and I was wondering how that was going to work until I saw a official directing traffic.  I had no idea that still existed!  I think they should invest in some roundabouts because for all his whistling and arm waving I think he was mostly adding to the confusion.

Rich and Omachi doing scientific things among the pneumatophores. 

 I have spent the last few days tagging along on random projects.  About half of the staff left yesterday on a big 3 week trip to do field work in Micronesia, so they were all really busy getting ready to go and didn't really have time to get me working on much.  Instead they passed me off to Rich, a visiting aquatic ecologist from Hawaii who is here with the forest service to study mangroves.  My help wasn't actually needed but they let me tag along and hangout while they work in the groves.  He is looking at sediment levels in the mangroves so the work has to be done at low tide.  Unfortunately most of the sites are only accessible by boat at higher tides, which means you either get dropped off close to the mangroves and then wait an hour for the water to drop, or you get dropped off far and have to walk through waste deep water and knee deep mud.  We tried both options.  Either way you come home soaking wet and covered in mud.  The groves trap sediment from runoff and rivers which gives the trees something to grow in and gives us a lot of mud to tromp through.  They look really crazy, like a Doctor Seuss book or a scene from a planet in star wars.  My favorite are the trees who send up roots (I think they are called pneumatophores) so there are just these weird wooden spikes everywhere.  I did a lot of poking in the mud looking for crabs and these fish that use their fins like arms and jump around.  Coming back out Friday we had a quarter mile trudge out to the boat in really deep mud so we were post holing to our knees every few steps.  It started to pour so I was soaking and all I could think was how one, this is what it must feel like to be a ship wreck survivor trying to make it out to the rescue boat and two, this is so much better then school!!!!!!!!!

Remora fish - look at those bat ears!

 I managed to get an invite out with a visiting researcher from Australia to dive to Yesterday.  I was really excited and also nervous that I would make an ass of myself since I've only dove 12 times ever.  Once again my help was not really needed, but they were kind enough to find me a task.  They were diving to photograph plates they put down on damaged reefs to record coral recruitment.  Some plates were in the open, some where partially enclosed in a cage to prevent herbivorie and others were totally enclosed.  My job was to find bits of broken coral and stuff it into the gaps around the bottom of the enclosures to help keep out the fish.  Mostly I was just trying to remember to breath and not do anything too stupid.  It worked out great because I got to dive a bunch and work out all the kinks before anyone actually asks me to do something under water.  The first few reefs we went to were pretty badly damaged from a big storm last year and didn't have a ton going on.  The last ones we visited though here still in tact and amazing.  I spent a lot of time staring at things and wondering what they were.  Highlights included a giant spiked sea cucumber, 2 Remora fish that usually attach to sharks and turtles and look like weird bat fish to me, and this cute little orange and blue fish that was hiding in a giant anemone-looking thing.  I got to go with them again today because one of the staff needed to finish a report in the office.  This time I actually was needed though!  I swam around with a meter square of plastic pvc piping and dropped it randomly and then took a picture.  It was a bit like doing acrobatic in the water because you had to align yourself just right to get the picture without being in it yourself, and the surges kept pushing me places I didn't want to go.  The Australian has decided to hijack me for his project since no one seems to care what I do and don't really have a project for me so I should get to go out a bunch more.  

Taking a break from diving to guard the boat and take some photos, a nap, and a swim!

The view from the PICRC boat, which I learned how to drive.

Okay well I guess I'll leave it at that.  I can't believe I have only been here A week.  I have already gotten to see and do so much.  I will try to post occasionally, but you can also email me.  I am going to try to put lots of picture so if you all get board with my rambling you can just look at the pictures.  Hope everyone is well!
Love Katharine