Another beautiful day in paradise

It's already our last full day on the island. Every minute has been packed with activity, even if it was just sitting on the beach enjoying the breeze.

Coming in March is quite different than July. The weather is only subtly different: really just slightly cooler. But the sea is 7 or 8 degrees cooler and the waves quite a bit larger. A number of the trees (like the Hogplum and the Woman's Tongue) have lost most of their leaves. And some of the fruits (like star fruit, sugar apples and genips) aren't available. The lack of genips alone has Daniel convinced that we should never, ever come back except during the summer.

The biggest difference, though, is one of attitude. Coming in the middle of the semester turned out to be really difficult for me to shift mental gears. I found myself constantly worrying about things I wasn't doing and feeling like I ought to be working. In the summer, I've never felt that.

And, of course, we also had a whole series of minor disasters before the trip. Charlie got mono and was sick for weeks. I got shingles. Buzz had a break-in at his house just before the trip. A constant litany of woes.

Near the end of our last trip, I bought a book of the trees of Florida and the Virgin Islands, but didn't have much time to use it. This trip, I've been studying the book carefully and trying to identify all of the trees. There are a lot of trees right on the Cottages property, but also at the refuge and every other place we've stopped. The book is a bit incomplete: I've seen a number of trees that aren't in the book. But I've learned how to distinguish among the different kinds of palm trees and acacias. One helpful thing is that many -- even most -- of the trees have leaves, flowers, and fruits, which makes much easier to tell them all apart.

The trapping has been good. The mongoose population seems high. We've caught a lot of young males that were unmarked with an average trap success rate of 25% to 30%.

Yesterday afternoon, we hiked along the North Shore towards Annaly Bay. It turned out to be a bit too strenuous for Emily and I. I found that I was overheating and worried about getting back, so we turned back and didn't make it. Alisa, Charlie, and Daniel reached Annaly bay and swam in the pools, but they and Buzz's students were a bit angry that they'd been misled regarding how strenuous the hike would be. We decided we needed to make up some t-shirts that say

I survived an "easy walk" with Buzz Hoagland.

On our last full day, Charlie wants to take Alisa to snorkel by the pier. Daniel and I (and I suspect Emily too) will probably hang out and have a drink. Tonight, Alisa is taking everyone on a kayak adventure in the Salt River Bay to see the bioluminescent algae. And tomorrow we head home.