quasigeostrophy | Island Observations

The airport here in St. Croix is now the farthest south I’ve been on land (fairly certain we swung around from the south in the air before landing), beating out the previous location of Chichen Itza in Mexico three years ago by less than three degrees.

It’s hot. I know the middle of the U.S. mainland is going through a heck of a heat and humidity wave right now and probably has it worse than here, but something about tropical heat just feels to me a lot more punishing. Saying that…
I never thought I would have to go outside to get comfortable while I’ve been here. The meeting room across the road from my room that we’re using as the field campaign’s operations center is extremely cold, especially near the AC blower.
Driving on the left is less harrowing even at first than I expected. I’ve only had one of my passengers politely verbally nudge me twice after turning somewhere (not a busy, major road either time). The weirdest part is being in a left-side operated vehicle while left-side driving.
Everything is expensive. I sort of expected that, but looking at the restaurant menus and even making a couple of trips to the grocery, it’s bad. I understand that it is mostly because of the fact that so much has to be shipped or flown onto the island. Doesn’t make it a whole lot easier to swallow. I thought about getting a nice coffee table-style photo book (I often do that of beautiful places in case my own photographs are not up to snuff or I didn’t get everything/everywhere I wanted), one that, based on its size, would have probably been $25-30 on the mainland. Here? $55.
The urban areas around Christiansted and especially Frederiksted show visible signs of economic depression, as well as a few obvious lingering scars from Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Meanwhile, the Buccaneer, the resort at which I’m staying and is hosting operations for the field campaign, is one of the more beautiful places I’ve ever stayed. I am in an ocean side room, looking out over a small beach inlet on the north shore. I don’t even want to know how much my advisor (well, the campaign grant, actually) is paying for this room, though I’m sure they gave a decent deal to NCAR considering how many people are here.
I didn’t know how widespread the accent I’ve known as Jamaican was across the other English-speaking islands. It is pretty much the norm here, though many other accents abound. I had a lot of trouble understanding my taxi driver on the way here from the airport. Of course, I’d also been up since 4am and was quite brain dead that day.
Listening to a local radio station that carries Caribbean baseball, the announcers get a lot more verbally animated and excited than I’ve ever heard on the mainland. It’s quite amusing and entertaining.
There are conch shells everywhere. Some are sitting on the wall of my private patio. I’ve even seen them used as the border between mulch and grass ringing several trees at a park near here. I understand it’s a delicacy here. No thanks.
Tried to visit and tour the Cruzan Rum Distillery the other day, but we arrived too late. I may try Saturday morning, depending on the work schedule and their hours.
When three of my colleagues and I tried to visit Cruzan Rum, we drove farther west on the island, into the hilly rainforest. We stopped to see beer-drinking (non-alcoholic) pigs. They grab the can, pierce it with their tusks, suck all the beer out, and spit out the can. Especially amusing when someone (who was not me) does not have a good grip on the can, and when the pig punctures it, a shower ensues. After seeing the pigs, we kept going through the rainforest until we got to the west end of the island and Frederiksted.
I got my feet in the water of the Caribbean by walking out on the beach outside my room yesterday morning. It was nice and cool. I don’t think I managed to get in the water at all in Cancun back in ’08. Of course, I forgot to pack flip-flops and I don’t want to pay for ones down here ($30!? Get out of here!), so my feet were not happy about the asphalt between my room and the beach (I can’t go straight out of my room via the patio as there is a rather steep cliff). I will probably do it at least once more, though, even if it means carrying my sneakers with me while barefoot.
I remembered my hat and sunscreen, but what I didn’t think about was bug spray. Mosquitoes and biting midges are rampant. Fortunately, the resort provides a can of Off in every room.
I think I’ve gotten some nice photos, including some of the sunrise yesterday morning at the easternmost point of the U.S. – Point Udall. I didn’t bring the cable for my digital SLR or a card reader, so they will have to wait to be shared until after I return home Tuesday.
As for the work (oh, yeah, I am here for work), it has been educational just to observe and make notes on all of the aspects of a field research campaign. That was the main thing I wanted to get out of this trip, so I can already consider it a success in that regard.
As for specific work, so my advisor can justify the cost of sending me here (which was kept to a minimum since I’m staying in her room for the week while she had to go home for the same time period), I’m sort of filling her spot and working as part of the forecast team. Three other grad students and I have to generate a forecast each day and one of us presents it to the science and technical teams daily. We use it to determine whether or not a research flight should be made with the aircraft (which might not happen because of our forecast for unfavorable conditions, either too dangerous or just not suitable for the observations we all want the aircraft-based instruments to collect) and in what general area around St. Croix the flight should cover. During a flight, we monitor conditions and can direct the aircraft via IRC chat to various on board personnel. Today’s flight apparently was one of the better ones in terms of cloud sampling, despite the C-130Q getting another lightning strike (making two in two consecutive flights).
Two very early mornings in a row have made for a tired me. Yesterday got up at 4 for the sunrise trip (which was cool), and today we had to give a 6:00am weather briefing because if conditions were going to be right today (they were), the previous forecast was that they would be so earlier in the day than research flights have normally been held. Tomorrow, we meet at Noon to prepare tomorrow’s 2:30pm forecast and briefing. No flight tomorrow – maintenance day, apparently badly needed for several of the scientific instruments.
Sitting here typing this just now, I see across the way a sizeable sightseeing boat unloading at a dock. I may have to look into when and how much such a tour is, and if I have time to go on one.