Lafayette fosters the idea of taking advantage of internship opportunities, and so I found myself doing so this past summer. However, it was not the typical internship; on the contrary, it was quite unique. I spent four weeks as a research diver with the Little Cayman Research Centre on Little Cayman, Cayman Islands.
I graduated from Lafayette this past May having studied, among other subjects, biology and environmental science. I was fortunate enough to take one or more classes abroad during each interim session in my college career. With Lafayette I visited the Bahamas, Spain, Portugal, Kenya, and Tanzania. Through programs outside Lafayette, I visited Dominica, Italy, Spain, and Israel. I continued my love for travel, my desire to study conservation biology, and my newfound love for scuba with the internship I took in July-August 2007.
Little Cayman is a small carbonate island lying between the islands Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac. It has its highest elevation at just over 40 feet above sea level. Its population is around 170 and there is only one grocery store, which doubles as a pharmacy and hardware store. The field station is just 0.5 km east of the Bloody Bay marine park, where the Cayman Trench exists.
The field station is directly on the coastline and both our bedrooms and our classroom faced the ocean, lying no more than 50 feet from the water’s edge. The water, a clear cerulean blue, was always the spot for a cool retreat from the summer heat and provided the opportunity for shore snorkeling and kayaking. We were greeted by brilliant sunrises and sunsets each day, to which the dozens of photos I took attest.
The facility itself had all of the basic modern conveniences, including the first sustainably-designed bathroom facility in the Cayman Islands, wet and dry labs, comfortable housing, and the most important thing, I am ashamed to say -- the internet. Having been on many trips beforehand that did not accommodate such a luxury, it was a considerably pleasant surprise. It not only made communication easier, but research as well.
The purpose of the internship was to acquire and develop research skills both underwater while diving and on the surface in the lab. Heck, let’s face it: I wanted to spend a part of my summer in the Caribbean. An added bonus to the course was graduate credit for my work and the opportunity to write, publish, and present abstracts of the information we gathered during the trip. I co-authored two papers as a result. I was the primary author of an abstract entitled “Cleanup of Marine Debris of Little Cayman Coastlines” and I was second author on two abstracts, “Comparative Analysis of Algal Cover and Coral Recruitment in Little Cayman for 2005, 2006 & 2007” and “Comparative Analysis of Coral Reefs in Little Cayman for 2005, 2006 & 2007.” They will be submitted for presentation to the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in July 2008.
Each day brought the opportunity to enter and explore the ocean. There were a few days for snorkeling and many others for diving. We had the opportunity to explore many diving sites of the island at a variety of depths. I was even able to descend to a depth of 109 feet! During these times we officially became research divers. We went underwater with our metal quadrats (to randomly sample and examine areas of ground algal cover), line (to delineate an area to examine), metal rings (for algae collection), and measuring poles to gather data on reef health via diversity. The abstracts are the most recent update on the health and status of the reefs. We did disease management whereby groups would photograph corals, scrape the edges of diseased tissue to treat it, and then apply epoxy to hinder the spread of the disease on the coral. We later returned to examine the progress.
Another project that I participated in was site cleanup. We would remove any manmade debris blown in from the ocean onto shore and examine what it was, where it had come from (if possible), and the relative weights of the trash. We were then able to examine rates of accumulation.
On our days off we had the opportunity to go on non-working dives. We were able to dive at the “wall” as it is called, a nearly vertical drop that exists between the trench and the Cayman shelf. On the first day off, I joined a local dive resort’s dive to the wall. At points it dips to 7,500m below the surface. On one dive, at 60 feet underwater, our instructor directed us away from the wall and jokingly wrote “don’t drop anything, the floor is 1,000m down.” On another day off, the interns and I had a once-in-a-lifetime shore dive to a wall, and on another day we dove another section of the wall and went on a dive at dusk. These dives were the most exciting because it was on these that we saw the most sharks, tuna jumping, rays, turtles, and lobsters! The dusk dive also gave us the opportunity to really examine the behavior of fish in their natural environment.
All in all, it was an exceptionally rewarding experience, and in doing the research I have been able to contribute to the knowledge of the world’s coral reef health so they can be better conserved for our future. I hope to partake in these conservation efforts again.
Sarah Kreisel ’07 is a graduate student at the College of William and Mary, where she is seeking a master’s in biology and hopes to examine wetlands restoration. She graduated from Lafayette with a major in biology and minor in environmental science, and fell one class short of a major in art with a studio art emphasis. She was a Trustee Scholar and a speaker at her class’ Baccalaureate service. She was a lab assistant for Nancy Waters, associate professor of biology, in fall 2006. Kreisel served as president and vice president of Hillel Society, lived
in Hillel House for two years, and received the Mort Levy Hillel
Leadership Award. She founded the Ceramic Society of Lafayette and held four leadership positions in her sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta. She was stage manager of the Marquis Society and served on its stage crew. She was an Arts Society board member and lived in an Arts House. She also was a member of the Concert Choir and Madrigal Singers.
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