Roseau, Dominica

From Friday evening until Monday morning, we sailed to Dominica, all of us getting used to the rocking ship, some becoming very seasick. Luckily, I never vomited, I only became dizzy and disoriented often. We have different days for classes, called A days and B days. Somehow, my roommate and I only got our classes on A days, leaving us the whole day off on B days. That was very nice to catch up on homework, sleep in, etc. However, being a work-study student, I had to wake up bright and early to work my shift on Sunday. But Saturday, I had all of my classes: International mass media with Downing, Global studies with Nalbach, Marine biology with Lawrence, and Anthropology of the ocean with Helmreich. It wasn’t a really difficult day, but concentrating was hard due to the rocking back and forth. It takes a while to be used to and the worst of it is in the Union, where the Global Studies class is held. But around Sunday evening, I was already pretty used to the ship and at times didn’t even notice the rocking. Just in time to arrive to Dominica at 8 a.m. on Monday.
I couldn’t get myself to wake up early enough, so I slept in a bit, seeing as how my field trip wasn’t until 1:30 p.m. (1330). So when I woke up, I got ready and met my group to go snorkeling in Champagne Reef (a must for any snorkeling/scuba enthusiast). Although I had a lot of fun and saw so many beautiful coral and fish, I’d recommend not going in a large group and just going there on your own. Being in a huge group following one dive master and having beginner snorkelers kick you in the face is not fun. But I’d love to return and do a little snorkeling with a small group of people. We saw many different coral, including brain and fire coral, an octopus, and many different fish. Also, there were bubbles coming out of the bottom (hence the name Champagne reef). My professor and dive master explained what caused this, but of course I can’t remember now.

On Tuesday, I woke up and got ready for my 4x4 adventure through the forest! It was very cool. We took safari-like jeeps and went through the forest and up the mountains. We saw many different plants and waterfalls. Then we went to a little cave area with a lake that we swam in. That was where they shot a part in Pirate’s of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest. So that was pretty exciting but it was freezing. It was beautiful driving through the semi-deciduous forest. I’m exhausted now and I’m about to go get dinner, do some homework and go to bed.