A little reverse logic and other odd bits

I've come across something down here that just doesn't make sense at first. When one is hot, you want a cold shower right? (now if you're Megan it'd be warm not scalding as usual). The idea being cooler water to cool you down. The thing is down here that logic does not work. Trust me, I've tried it again and again. "What's not to work about this?" you ask? Well you take a cold shower, which does feel REALLY great, but the second you hop out your body goes into shock due to the massive temperature increase and starts sweating profusely. Note this all happens in less time then it takes for you to even grab your towel to start drying off. So you finish a nice cold shower only to be covered in sweat... again. Even though it sounds crazy I've learned to take (fairly) hot showers. It's not exactly inviting but getting your self warmer makes the air feel cooler when you get out. It's a little bit of madness but the reverse logic works well. I get a good... oh.. 2 minutes or so before i am covered in sweat, which is much nicer then the .002 seconds with a cold shower. :) If you go straight from the hot shower (dry off) then just flop onto your bed, you can get a good 10 or 15 minutes of dry skin. The act of getting dressed always works up a good sweat. Aren't the tropics fun?
Jumping tracks to a totally different topic, I get asked many times what time zone Grenada is in. When I mention that it's in the Atlantic time zone, which is EST +1, everyone seems to be confused. Everyone pictures the entire lot of Caribbean islands directly south of Florida and curving west from their. Sorry to burst all your bubbles but your way off! To facilitate explaining this I took a snapshot of stormpulse.com's website because it does a good job of showing the US and all the little islands. (Note that the little spec of sand and dirt we live on is smaller then the bullet point to label it... comforting?) So see below...
You might have to click on it to enlarge it to see the details but essentially i drew a circle around NYC and drew a line straight down. As you can see Grenada (also in a red circle) is FAR to the east, hence the next time zone over. So does it make sense now? Hopefully it does... if not grab your self a globe with time zones on it, if THAT doesn't work then just forget it, those two or three brain cells left are probably put to better use.
The red circle on the far left of the US is about where Ventura/Santa Barbara CA is, our second home.
Oh and as you've probably noticed the large Gustav hurricane in the middle of the picture. This is as of 11pm Sat night. Gustav only gave us a tiny bit of rain and nothing interesting other then that. SGU and many others said Grenada is too far south for most the hurricanes and I am finding it to be very true. Everything seems to form off the coast of Africa at about 16 degrees north, near the Cape Verde Islands, then it moves west/north-west. Grenada is at 12 degrees north which means everything starts above us and moves further north. Very little to worry about. As strange as it sounds I do actually hope for SOME minor storm activity our way because the rain feels GREAT and drops the temps quite a bit.

Update: One thing I forgot to mention about the time zone difference. In Grenada, we don't observe Daylight Savings. So during the summer months when EST moves forward an hour we are at the same time, (such as right now). Come October when the time changes again for the US we'll be an hour ahead of EST.

Vehicle License

As many SGU students have found, it is very helpful to have a car around Grenada. Back in March Megan and I made the choice to purchase a Suzuki Escudo (aka Sidekick with right hand drive). I noticed when we purchased this little SUV that there was a good size sticker on the front windshield with an expiration date of June 30th clearly marked on it. As the end of our stay for term 1 came up I inquired about how to get our car re-registered before we left so it wasn't expired when we returned. I was told "You can't register a car early, do it when you come back." With this in mind we took off for CA thinking when we came back it'd be no big deal to get this taken care of.
Thursday (we flew in Wednesday) we drove over to the police station to get our drivers permits renewed. With how relaxed all of Grenada's laws are we didn't really see anything wrong with this. (Although it wasn't the smartest move we've made). We hadn't even gotten out of the car yet at the station when the fun began. A man approached us wearing jeans and an un-tucked polo shirt. People often try to make a buck buy 'assisting' tourists with common tasks in lou of a fee. Since we both already knew what to do to get our permits we tried to brush this guy off but he kept on rambling on in a sort of way which made me think he was more likely speaking Swahili then English. I did notice after a bit though that he started pointing at our 2007 registration sticker.... wait for it.. OH right of course! Then I noticed the words FINE and FEES coming out of his mouth. Feeling rather stuck and not sure whether to follow this guy or hop in our car and run the other way we chose to follow him into the police station as he didn't seem angry or show any intent to do us wrong. We got our permits to drive no problem. This guy speaking some local variation of English walk talking a million miles a minute to the police officers behind the counter. Eventually (after a LOT of talking), I finally figured out that when the "license sticker" NOT a "registration sticker" has expired Grenadian Police take is EXTREMELY seriously. "THAT VEHICLE IS NOT TO BE DRIVEN ANYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" What also came out of our uh.. discussion... was that we had to DRIVE the car to be inspected, and the inspection place closed in less then 15 minutes. So I can't drive it anywhere, but to get it licensed i must drive it... eventually it came out that the police must write me formal permission to drive my car from one location to the inspection location and back home with specific time limits. After getting this permission I asked "OK after I get it inspected, then what?" They said "DRIVE IT HOME AND PARK IT!!", followed by the previous rant of not driving the car anywhere. The police told me I had to walk back down to the police station Friday morning to get ANOTHER permission from them to drive the car to the Carenage (15 minute drive north near the capitol) to pay for the sticker and pick up the sticker.
Megan and I zoomed off to the inspection thankful they didn't fine us for driving around in such a DANGEROUS car. Obviously any car with an expired license is likely to explode at any second killing thousands. We got the car inspected at what was a typical Grenadian style joint. Picture a warehouse with a few broken down cars parked at odd angles and brush growing up through the hoods and interior. Then add the general scene of a chop-shop, add a some rust, and throw in one large black man with his feet up on a desk leaning back watching a "LIVE FOX News! AMAZING CAR CHASE!!". Some moron in Texas decided he didn't want to stop when the cops wanted him to and this Grenadian Inspection guy had a hard time un-gluing his eyes from this spectacle to even acknowledge we were there.
The inspection went fine other then our horn not working which is odd as it worked perfectly fine prior to our departure, (and started working again today). We drove back to the police station since our permission didn't expire for another 45 minutes. I showed them the green inspection report and that everything had passed after a police lady took it from us looked it up and down with her nose in the air. I asked if I could get permission to drive the car to get the sticker tomorrow morning. The police refused again and again, "we can NOT give permission today for tomorrow".... my reply "but the permission is hand written with the date and time frame the permission is valid for?" They didn't care. Eventually one more mellow police officer chimed in (I think sensing the stupidity in this) and said "sorry it's just protocol". So we left annoyed.
I got up early-ish Friday since I had a work meeting at 11 which I was hosting. I rode my bike back down to the police station to get the permission to drive to get the license sticker. I was greeted by a new group of officers. In their typical fashion they accuse me of doing everything wrong until I prove otherwise, and even then they look at me with contempt and suspicion. I was asked immediately "HOW DID YOU GET HERE!" I replied, "with the bike parked right there". (the sweat dripping from my forehead, the nice three ridges of hair which my helmet formed, and the sweat everywhere else apparently wasn't enough indication). "WHY! do you want permission?!?" We continued round and round for a while and eventually got to the point where this police man just didn't feel like giving me permission. He told me to walk, or take a bus. "Why don't you ride your bike?" me, "because it's a long ways and I was told to come back here to get permission from you". He never gave me permission. I turned around and left frustrated and saying something along the lines of "this is REALLY stupid" which was followed by a shout out "WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE!"

The laws in Grenada are simply each police person's opinion. They may be written down but that doesn't matter because no one would ever bother to reference them. Every cop has the authority to dictate the law as they see fit, or to what fits there mood. This guy apparently felt lazy and didn't like me so he was a pain in the ass.

The ONE good piece of information I got out of this encounter was that the office with the stickers closed at 3pm, just enough time for me to finish my meeting and catch a Reggie bus to the Carenage.

When I arrived at the appropriate building in the Carenage I asked at the front desk on the first floor, where do I go for the license stickers? She kindly replied second floor. Thanking her we went up stairs and I was quickly reminded that there are two main areas up stairs as this is the same place I had paid for the transfer of title in March. Megan stood in line for us as I went back down stairs to get clarification since the line was LONG and slow moving. "Do we stand in the line up front or go around back to the offices?" When I was here in March we stood in line only to find out we should have got straight to the back offices first. She said, "go straight to the offices". Great! so I went back upstairs, pulled Megan out of line and we went to the back offices. We found the correct unlabeled desk and asked about a license sticker. "You need to stand in line and pay for it first, then come back to me." ugh... OK so back to the front we went. We waited in line for about 45 minutes, paid the license fee which was $260 EC... about $100 USD. While paying we noted a sign on the glass "$500.00 fine or 3 MONTHS prison time for expired registration... EEEK!!! We got the sticker and I noticed the expiration still said June 30th. I asked why and he said "You're LATE!" I asked "Well I was gone all summer and I was told I could not pay early. Can I pay this early next summer so I am not late next time?" The reply, "You can only pay between May 16th and June 30th." Me, "can I move the due date to be earlier so I can pay it on time?", "No."
So NOW I get it, Grenada has so many levels of bureaucratic "protocols" that no one has any idea why they are the way they are (nor do they care), nor any authority to question them (much less change them).
We now know the hoops to jump through, regardless of how silly they may be Grenada's police force apparently takes auto insurance, and license stickers VERY seriously. As a side note though hopping into the drivers seat with an open bottle of beer in your hand is totally A-OK, as is hanging off the back of any vehicle driving down the road. Drinking at any age is apparently totally acceptable. Cars that spew out more smoke then a coal power plant get the green thumb, and vehicles which generally look like they are about to fall into a million pieces pass inspection year after year.

It must be a Grenada specific requirement for all cars, a self destruct mode which activates with an expired license sticker. This of course would cause far more devastation they the hundreds of drunk drivers or people hanging off of cars.

It could have turned out much worse, but it still wasn't exactly a walk in the park either.

ahh the Caribbean life, isn't it great?!

Grenada Take 2!

Term 2! Second term on the little spec of dirt in the Carribean.
First impressions? HOLY CRAP IT'S HOT!!! So we left fairly well adjusted to the temperatures down here, returning after three months in relatively cool CA the adjustment back into Grenada's temperatures and humidity has been hard on our systems. The last term, aka the "dry season", varied in temperature from about 78-83 and around 60% humidity. Comparatively we are now in the "wet season" and the temps are 81-88 and humidity 65-100%. (so far, three days into our stay here) So the numbers indicate only a slight change yet it seems like a massive difference.
It was REALLY nice to come back to an apartment already setup and waiting for us, we had to pay rent over the summer which stunk but having all our stuff setup ahead of time was GREAT!
On the flight down here in January we watched with amazement as lots of SGU students sat very relaxed on the plane and chatted as if they were just traveling to the next city over, not thousands of miles around the globe onto an underdeveloped island in the Caribbean which had been major political unrest only 15 years prior, and devastated by Hurricane Ivan only four years prior. Now we get it. Although traveling makes Megan and I quite anxious we were far more relaxed and looking forward to getting "home".
Although Grenada is more "normal" now, it still ceases to amaze us and make us laugh. For example the first night out walking the dogs I came across a snail. "OK, so what?" you say. Well apparently in Grenada snails get a LOT bigger then in CA. The snail was just mozzing along through the grass. In what has become a normal blogging fashon the first thought I had was "Quick get a picture of this thing!"
As you can see above this thing was pretty darn big. The snail wasn't too fond of being picked up and hauled off his slimy path which probably took him hours to progress to. He's mostly up inside his shell in this photo but as you can see by my hand being right behind him, he's about 4 inches long and almost two inches in diameter. That's one BIG slime trail.

Remember that shower head I mentioned in one of my very first bloggs about Grenada? Well the fun hasn't ended. The shower head is designed to be threaded onto the water pipe so that it faces perfectly straight down. Whom ever installed it threaded it incorrectly and pointed it slightly down and towards the back wall, which convienetly has a faucet pointing out of it right at hip level. This made getting any part of our bodies from the hip level down wet quite a yoga act. Megan and I decided to ask again to see if we could get this fixed. "Oh sure no problem, how did you deal with that before?!?"... So while we were out the Electrician came and uh "fixed it". Now because it has 240V DC wired directly to it they called an electrician, even though the problem really has to do with the plumbing. Either way we returned to find our shower head looking like this...
At this point you might be saying "ok i don't get the hose thing but it looks ok to me." Lets take a closer look.
As you can see by the red lines it's still far from 90 degrees. At the point of this picture the shower head was still totally clogged up so the water fell with very poor pressure mostly straight down. I have NO idea how or why the Electrician thought it was a good idea to put the hose (see blue arrow) on the FRONT side of the shower head. This makes it impossible to actually get under the shower head to get wet. This used to be on the back side facing the wall with the faucet. Also note our favorite faucet in the red circle to which our hips bump into constantly.
So partially fixed one problem and caused another... ugh. This is when the engineer side in me takes over. Forget asking for help, if you want it done right do it your self. I took off the face of the shower head cleaned it out (see sand and other roof stuff, remember water recycling post?), and put it on with the hose facing backwards as it should be. Of course by unclogging it now the water pours through as it should with higher pressure and is right up against that lovely faucet again... lol! You've gotta just laugh or you'll go crazy. One of these days I'll get the courage up to just take the whole thing off, unwire it and do it all over, but until then we take Yoga Showers.
We're looking forward to another fun term in Grenada!

Summer Blur

I find myself sitting here on the same couch I did when I posted the last blog over three months ago. To say the last three months were a blur is an understatement. Megan and I flew back home to CA back in May (shortly after the turtle post). We stayed in my grandparents house since they spend the summers back in MI. It worked out quite nicely. Megan worked at Banfield this summer, which is a large corporate vet clinic chain that rents space inside Pet Smart. She grew to REALLY love her coworkers and the animals she worked with. Her feelings on their corporate protocols was a little less then excited but regardless it was a great summer job and good experience. It's funny having a wife as a Vet student, dinner discussions were usually about what color fluid projected out of this dog, or what psycho mental issue that cat had. I always knew it had been a good day when she'd come home with a big smile followed by "Guess what I did today!!!!". Her favorite days were when she got to draw blood and/or place a catheter. She was obviously born to be a vet, personally stabbing poor helpless little furballs and sucking out their blood isn't MY idea of a good time, but she seems to enjoy it. ;)
One of the highlights of the summer went about like this... Megan was at Banfield, near her last day. She mentioned to the techs (or "Pet Nurses" as Banfield calls them), that she thought it was odd that she was one of the only employees there that did not have a tattoo. "I am such a wuss I don't even have my ears pierced!". This last comment got everyone quite excited, immediately all the needles of various gauges came out and Megan's blood pressure sky rocketed. The staff "We've got sterile needles and Lidocaine!... We could strap you down to the surgery table!... What? You don't trust a Vet?" Megan left work an hour early that day after running around with her hands over her ears all day. (Her face bright red of course). There was talk of possibly buying a piercing gun and bringing it to the spa party that the staff was going to that following Saturday. Megan freaked. She's always wanted her ears pierced but never had the guts to get it done. We were perusing the local mall for other reasons when we decided to stop by one of the piercing kiosks. Our intentions were to purchase a set of earrings that could be used in a gun so she would at least have ones she liked if they did have a gun at the party. Unfortunately we could not purchase them because they came in some sort of spring loaded cartridge which was a liability. I threw out the option "Well... you could just get it done right now and not have to worry about it anymore..." Megan was still freaked but still more freaked about the idea of her friends who are not "professional ear piercers" puncturing holes into her body. "Well, I would have to have your mom here..." My mom who is always busy dropped everything she was doing and was by my side in just a few minutes. Megan feeling the pressure said Yes. She picked out some cute pink flower studs and sat down in the kiosk. They had two people there and two guns so they pierced both of her ears at once. With a "1, 2, 3, CLICK" it was done. She turned to face me with a slight frown of "well that didn't feel good but it didn't hurt THAT much" she turned her whole upper body to face me. She was stiff as if they had just performed major neck surgery. I laughed but was very happy to see she finally did it. I figured it we got past the wedding without her piercing her ears then it would never happen. That was a very exciting day, followed by a few days of ear ring shopping... lol. I did ask for it so no complaints here.
Another major event of the summer was Megan's sister Crystal got married on August 9th in Santa Barbara. We had a lot of fun at the wedding and reception. It was a casual relaxed event with good food and good times.
Now I find myself sitting on this same (hard) couch wondering "did we really spend three months back there?" it was too fast to comprehend.

The whole time we were in CA though we missed our home, Grenada.

Turtles... the REALLY REALLY big ones!

A couple weeks into the semester Megan and I started hearing whispers about sea turtles. Eventually the whispers changed to giant sea turtles. Then the bad news came in, the facts. Yes there are giant sea turtles in Grenada, BUT they only come out at night after dark. They also only come to the most remote beach on the island, which of course is the furthest point away from where we live. Next the uh not so great news kept coming in, to see the turtles you have to sign up for a Sunday night trip with the research group which is tracking and monitoring the turtles.... for a 11 hour shift, 7pm to 6am.
This news was less then exciting to say the least. Megan has class 9:30am Monday, and does not function well on less then 8 hours of sleep. Asking her to work on 2.5 hours or less was more then just unrealistic. The sign-ups came and went, we wanted to go but just couldn't see making it happen, "probably next term".
Luckily for us there is a tour guide group which posted an event on Facebook to go see the turtles in conjunction with the research group. And best yet the trip was 6pm to midnight and on a Wed night when Thursday was a holiday. PERFECT! We quickly signed up!
Due to previous bus experiences (see the waterfall trip), Megan was leery of sitting in the back of a bus flying around bumpy windy roads at night. Contacting the group I proposed following behind the bus. The day we were to leave, Laura, Bob, and their daughter, India, joined us in our car. Thanks to Bob's negotiations we got a nicely reduced cost (since we weren't using the bus service).
Off we go, me at the helm chasing a white bus with a big blue stripe. There was nothing more important to me that night then to NOT LOSE THAT BUS! It was a little challenging but I managed. There was one pit stop along the way to allow a poor young British tourist to loose her dinner off the side of the road. Off we go again making darting turns down roads which look like they wouldn't go anywhere and eventually landing us on a very bumpy dirt road on the beach.
We eventually stopped at a small shack which was to serve us some dinner. A bit sketchy? ohhh yeah! Food cleanliness?... Food what? Seeing as it wasn't till 9pm when we finally reached this place we didn't care. Gobbling down the BBQ chicken we were recharged and ready to see some turtles.
Above, you can see Megan on the left in pink, India on Laura's lap, and Bob on the right as everyone enjoys dinner.
Prior to going on this trip there were a few things that we knew about ahead of time. One, you can't use normal flashlights - at the time all we knew was that you needed to cover them with red cellophane. Also we knew that headlights, the flashlight thing with an elastic band for around your head, was greatly preferred. Of course finding something specialized like a headlamp was impossible in Grenada. So instead I bought and borrowed a couple little flashlights, covered the ends with red cellophane and then mounted them to the bill of two hats we had. When we arrived I was quite disappointed to find out that the 9 LED flashlights I was using were too bright! bummer... so essentially no one could use their flashlights except the tour guide.
As the group poured out onto the beach in total and complete blackness we were all quite shocked to see we only had to walk about 50 feet onto the beach to find our giant Leatherback Sea Turtle. Standing in complete darkness (except for two very dull red lights) made even seeing this monstrous beast very difficult even though it was within inches of us. Eventually eyes adjusting I was astonished to see the size of this turtle. Comparatively our turtle was only a medium sized one at a bit over 5 FEET LONG! My facts could be a bit skewed but what I understood the guide to say was that they are often about 6 foot long full grown. That is one frigg'n HUGE turtle.
So what the heck is a sea turtle doing on land anyhow right? They come on shore this season to lay eggs. They find the perfect spot, similar to a dog finding the perfect spot to do their business, it doesn't look any different they any other patch of sand to us but for some reason the turtle thinks this one spot is just right. The researchers count the eggs and ensure that perfect spot truly is a safe and good location for the eggs. If it's not, they will re-locate the eggs to a better location. The researchers also microchip the turtles for traceability, essentially they insert a chip the size of a grain of rice just under the skin in an area the turtle has almost no sensation in. Then when they find turtles they scan them and can tell what turtle each one is, and track their measurements (if they grew).
So now that we are seeing this ultra incredible sight we want to share it with everyone at home and prove that we actually saw what we said we saw, right? Out comes all the cameras... now here is where that whole red light thing kicks in. Turtles use the reflection of the moonlight on the crashing waves to determine what direction the ocean is. Essentially when they are done laying their eggs they move towards light. This system works great when nature is left alone, but enter us humans and you can see how beach side property completely screws them up. They either can't get back to the ocean or don't come on to shore at all in the first place, hence they are an endangered species. Now, red light is dimmer and different enough that the researchers can use it to work around the turtles without messing them up too bad. Except when the turtle is all done, at that point all lights must go off. We learned this the hard way... more on that later.
So everyone's got their cameras ready, but we cant use any light, so no flash. This leads me to a question, do you know what the single most important influence on photography is? LIGHT!!!! Now, we're all on a beach with an amazing Leatherback sea turtle in front of us which our naked eyes can barely see even with the dim red light and cameras can't see a thing. Luckily for me I know a little (not a lot) about my camera and photography. New digital cameras usually won't take a photo unless they can establish focus on the subject, the camera cant focus on solid black. First step, put camera in manual focus mode. Cameras work on a simple mechanism, the more light available the quicker it can take a photo. Hence all your night shots are usually blurry, because you couldn't hold the camera still long enough, even though that same amount of time worked just fine for outdoor soccer shots. So secondly I needed to hold the camera PERFECTLY STILL for about 20 seconds, that wasn't about to happen without a tripod. What is all this equating to? A big long winded excuse for blurry red & black hard to distinguish photos... see below... :)

Above - Most the photos taken are from behind the turtle using the little light the guide had to light what you see. We were always in back to reduce the amount of light in the turtles face.


Above - this blurry lump is a turtle head, one of only three shots I have of the front of the turtle.
Another thing to note, although there looks like there was a lot of light in these photos that is due to altering the contrast and brightness a LOT. The original photos are black with a slight red glow.
Above - that was the money shot! the best shot I had of the night. all the white you see on the turtles back is just sand which the turtle flung up there while digging.

above - this shot is of a researcher with his left arm holding the turtles left rear flipper out of the way while the guys right arm catches a few eggs (the white blobs). This shot is thanks to a very nice British girl and the only other person on the trip with an SLR, who I later found out was staying in our apartment complex. (Convenient for swapping the couple good shots we each got out of the 40 or so I took).

At one point we did get to each take a turn touching the turtle. It's hard to describe what it felt like other then like leather. The shell was soft but firm. The ridges down the shell were very hard and almost barnacle like. I reached down further and felt the turtles hind leg and flipper. The skin was silky smooth and soft, not at all what I expected. The flipper was a bit harder but still pretty soft. Through all of this the turtle really didn't seem to care about us. With the exception of getting confused about the lights. The shots i have of the front of the turtle were taken as it slowly turned towards me and started moving in my direction. I was only a couple inches from her in that head only shot. We quickly turned off all our lights and the turtle re-oriented herself and headed off to the ocean.

Now, so you have an idea what the turtles actually look like, I Googled the leatherback sea turtles and found the below images...



These guys are doing exactly what we were doing. Either this photograph was taken before they knew about the affects of flash and white lights or the photographer got a nice chewing out right after this shot was taken.

Megan and I hope to go back up there again before sundown and hope to see a turtle or two come ashore when there is still some light out, doubtful but hopeful. This trip probably won't happen for a while but I'll make sure to post about it when it does. This was quite an experience.

Grenada 2008 Triathlon

First off it's been ... over a month since I last posted, time sure flies. This is not to say we haven't been up to anything interesting in the past month, I've just been a bit lazy i suppose. So on to the Tri.
A friend/classmate of Megan's at SGU, Jenny, brought her nice Cannondale road bike down a couple months back. I bought a mountain bike off a departing student about the same time. We started riding about once a week since then. It wasn't long after that she brought up the Grenada Triathlon. She wanted to do the whole thing her self but thought it'd be fun if three of us did it as a relay. I was totally for that, having done this once before for a sprint tri in Oxnard, I knew it would be a blast. Jenny did the searching of her fellow class mates and first convinced Hedda, a great avid runner to join. Then after some looking she convinced Katie to join as the swimmer. Katie kept warning us that she had not swam much at all in the past 8 years. I still knew she'd do far better then myself as my swimming has been limited to the dog paddle, and 1700 meter swim equaled me on the bottom of the ocean floor.
Fast forward to this past Saturday, race day! I was nervous as usual prior to any event and couldn't eat much of anything. The race was scheduled to start at noon, which is a terrible time considering the heat and wind but oh well. In typical Grenada fashion things got delayed and the race started about 1pm. Prior to race start the four of us Jenny (going solo), Hedda, Katie, and myself were lucky enough to enjoy the cool comfort of Hedda's mom's cottage which happened to be right where the race started. The Olympic distance Tri and the Sprint Tri were both the "main attactions" but prior to them there were many smaller races held. "Tri-a-tri" which is a super short distance tri for first timers, and other tris for young kids. The highlight of these pre-events was the "6 and under Tri". I seriously had no idea there ever was such a thing! Below are some photos of this fun event. I didn't have the camera in hand for the swim unfortunately, it consisted of about a 10 foot long, 3 foot deep, parent assisted swim (splash as much as possible). Followed by the kids running into the transition area to grab their bikes for the next portion of the race...

Note the training wheels! Don't for a second think these kids weren't taking this seriously though! This was TOUGH STUFF!

This little guy wizzed around no training wheels needed. He did however need some serious directional help from Dad in blue. Offical number on shirt? Check! Number written on all limbs? Check!

Watch out Olympians! This little guy will be kicking some serious butt in a few years. He transitioned from bike to run prior to some of the kids even getting onto their bikes! A very determined and fast little guy!

A female athlete here a bit stressed about where to go. Mom closely by her side made sure she found her way.
Jumping off the bike mom assists as they run to the transition area to drop off the bike!

Another little girl on her way in from the big bike ride!

With the helmet and the bike back in the transition area she's off like lightning! (well relative lightning anyhow ;) )
Little girl number two closely on the other girls heals you can see the determination in her face.

Needless to say it was a hilarious event which we all enjoyed immensely. The little kids did an awesome job. On to the main event...

Here is our motley crew from left to right, Hedda (runner), Katie (swimmer), me (cyclist), and Jenny (doing the WHOLE DANG THING!). This is just prior to the start of the race, all of us still standing up tall and straight. The three of us (Hedda, Katie and I), had to come up with a team name while registering. Thanks to Hedda's brilliance we are known as the HIPPOS! Dangerous and fast! (Did you know hippos have been clocked running over 30 mph?!)

Just prior to the race Katie gets pumped up! Notice the sea of red swim caps and how few yellow ones you see? That yellow signifies crazy, aka Olympic distance. Katie is just about to swim 1500 meters, that's about 1499 meters further then I'd make it, even with 'Water Wings'!

So a quick overview of the Tri. The Sprint try was one lap swim (750 meters), 3 laps cycling (12 miles), and 2 laps running (3.1 miles). We (including Jenny) did the Olympic Tri which is double everything 1500m swim, 24 mile bike ride, and a 6 mile run.

Unfortunately we caught this big harry guy in the way of the photo behind him facing the camera is Jenny suited up and ready to kick some butt.

AND THEY'RE OFF!!! Can you see the yellow cone way off in the distance? Lets just say that's the short side of a rectangle and you can't even see the other cones off to the right. The Olympic swimmers swam this two times!

Here's Jenny flying out of the water as if she just did that swim in her sleep.
Katie following closely behind, came streaming out of the water to hand off the anklet to me.
In a relay Tri the electronic microchip anklet you wear (which records your time) is the "baton" that is handed from athlete to athlete. In this race the rule was the previous athlete had to place it on the next athlete. Katie is very quickly strapping me up!
Katie having kicked butt on the swim pauses for a quick shot (not looking the least bit tired), as I run off with my bike to the cycling course. She of course proved how amazing of a swimmer she really is, regardless of not swimming for the past 8 years.
Here I am completing my first of six laps. Although it looks as though I am already laying down on the job, i am attempting to "get little". This is not easy on a mountain bike.
Jenny screams by here doing a much better job of "getting little".
As can be seen from this shot Jenny is a nice narrow bullet shape, "little". The smaller you get the less wind resistance and with the REALLY strong winds here that was a big factor. On my big fat tired mtn. bike i did my best by just laying low.
Jenny is now flying through her run makeing it look effortless. Don't forget by this point she's already swam 1700 meters, rode 40Km (24 miles), and is now into a 10K (6.2 mile) run. Jenny's hardcore!
Here I am still putting along on my mountain bike. Yes that's a cop on my butt and no he's not trying to give me a ticket (although his lights and siren were going full force). This is one of those race indicators you either love or hate. If the cop is in front of you that means you are the very first athlete on the course and they are clearing the road for you... but in my case I had the proud distinction of being dead last! In addition to leading the first athlete they also follow the last. The sounds of his motorcycle struggling to go as slow as I was kept this very clear in my mind.
Yeah I was about ready to lob a tomato or what ever I could at the cop by this point. I know he was doing his job, but man was it annoying! Thankfully this was my last lap. On lap four I was already being asked by race officials "This is your last lap, right?!", and again on lap five. I could see they were relieved on my last lap that they could finally stop standing in the sun directing traffic. It wasn't the most encouraging thing to hear/see, but hey whatever I finished! And I did it as quick as I could!
Dismounting I ran my bike into the transition area where Hedda was waiting.
As I mentioned before it was my job as the previous athlete to remove the anklet from my ankle and place it on Hedda. This is a FAR harder task then one might think. Simply running after biking 24 miles was challenging, then to bend over and do something requiring dexterity was challenging enough that Hedda checked to make sure i could do it as i fumbled around. :)
Hedda literally sprints off to do her portion, the 6.2 mile run.
After my bike ride I was very low on energy (too little to eat prior) and the world kept turning blue. I promptly sat down before gravity forced me to the ground. I of course laid back right into a huge ant nest and proceeded to get bitten like crazy by tiny black ants. Megan ensured I had plenty of fluid (i downed five bottles of water in about 20 minutes, it's hard to intake enough water in this heat), and food. A nice thing about being on a tropical island is that tree ripened bananas (not pulled off green like they are for the US) are very accessible and tasted GREAT after the ride.
Here's Jackie one of our cheering crowd! The support was really awesome! The section of people cheering for the Hippos was louder then any other on the course! GO HIPPOS!!! We couldn't have asked for a better fan club! Thanks Megan, Jackie, Elise, Chad, and Kris (Hedda's Mom)!
Hedda booked it through the race with grace, serious speed, and a huge smile. This won her the "Most Spirited Athlete" award at the BBQ banquet Sat night.
Hedda finished in great time. We all had a blast
Jenny came in a ways ahead of us finishing very strong. I am SO impressed she did that whole thing, and faster then the three of us combined!

Saturday night the Grenada Triathlon organization had a BBQ banquet for the athletes and an awards ceremony. Jenny, Megan and I attended. Apparently relay team genders are determined by majority rules. I found this out the hard way when the 2nd place FEMALE Olympic distance relay award was announced to The Hippos! I thought it was hilarious receiving the female award for my team, being a male of course.

This is a shot of one of our three identical medals. The back is smooth metal which I plan to have engraved with "2nd Place FEMALE Olympic Distance Triathlon"
Just as impressive if not more so Jenny won 1st Place for Women 20-29! Picture coming soon!

I had an awesome time. I couldn't have asked for better teammates! Thanks Hedda and Katie!! Thanks also to Jenny, for without her encouragement none of us would have ever done it!

Let the wet labs pour!

Last week was one of the busiest weeks for wet labs. Several veterinarians visited from the US (some from CA) and offered exciting wet labs on various topics regarding both small and large animals. 2 equine veterinarians (Dr. Scott Marx & Dr. Elizabeth Schilling) specializing in dentistry were here along with 1 veterinarian (Dr. Kevin May) specializing in chiropractic/acupuncture/endoscopy.

The 1st wet lab was 2 days of equine dentistry. That Friday night I sat through a lecture about equine dentistry and on Saturday I spent the day in lectures and doing hands-on floating! For those of you who don't know what floating is, it is filing down the rough edges on a horse's teeth. Horses' teeth continuously grow unlike human teeth, so they must be filed down to prevent them from injuring the inside of the cheeks or tongue, etc. I never knew how much energy it takes to kneel down (since I am so tall) to be able to see in a horse's mouth and work on it! Although it was fun and a great experience, it did confirm that I want to be a small animal veterinarian rather than a large animal vet. I love horses so much, but I still feel it is safer to work on small animals and it is a bit easier on the back. Either way, it was awesome I could gets my hands in there and work on the horse myself.

This is an adorable baby donkey at the SGU farm:

... and an adorable goat:


Here I am floating Alamo's teeth! My friend, Chris, was the "head-stand" since we didn't have an actual head-stand with us. That is Dr. Schilling to the left:


On Monday there was a wet lab in canine acupuncture. Dr. May came into to our anatomy lab to teach us for a little bit and told us to bring any friendly dogs to the wet lab that night so we could stick them with needles. I knew it'd be challenging to control 2 dogs with my dear husband staying home (not wanting to see needles), so I volunteered Felicity. Of course I didn't tell Felicity what I was about to do to her, along with several other eager vet students! Once at the wet lab, Dr. May went around the room and showed each group of students how to do acupuncture on the volunteer dogs. When he got to me, I told him of Felicity's past pancreatitis issues. He showed me where to start with the needles and how to put them in. Each of us in the group were able to put a needle in poor Felicity's back. It was so cool! She barely noticed the needles because they were tiny. Some students poked themselves, but I am way too chicken to do that! Felicity loved all the attention and treats from mom.

Here is Felicity before we poked her - I don't have any shots from after we poked her:


On Tuesday there was a wet lab in canine chiropractic. This time I volunteered Jasper & Felicity and was able to get Kris to join me. Chiropractic work seemed more difficult mainly because both dogs were tense and stiff the whole time - being terriers, it makes sense. They both were especially stiff in their pelvic areas - probably from jumping up and down furniture. Despite them being nervous, I was able to learn a few valuable chiropractic moves. Below, my friend Melissa is about to perform the "cervical scoop" on Jasper:


On Wednesday there was a wet lab in equine endoscopy. This was super exciting to me because I had never seen endoscopy performed on any animal. In Santa Barbara it was always challenging to find a small animal vet with an endoscope due to the cost of the equipment. I hope to have one in my future clinic because I now see how valuable it can be in diagnosing stomach ulcers, etc. This sweet horse named Alamo (looks just like Sierra) always seems to volunteer herself for these wet labs! So we proceeded to sedate Alamo and stick an endoscope down. Each of us got to play around with the knobs that control if the endoscope moves up/down or back and forth. It was so cool to see the inside of the stomach on the computer monitor! Sad for the horse, but exciting for us, we actually did find a stomach ulcer in Alamo. I unfortunately don't have any pictures from this wet lab.

There was a final wet lab on Thursday, but I came down with a cold, so I decided to skip it since I had a physiology exam the next day. That wet lab was on equine acupuncture & chiropractic. Luckily I have seen these performed on Sierra many times by Dr. Greg Ugarte. I also was able to see amazing results with Sierra.

The wet labs were a great experience and it made me so happy to see that SGU was open to the students being exposed to more holistic types of medicine. I definitely plan on incorporating all these things, along with nutrition, in my future practice.

http://www.veterinaryoptions.com/
http://ecvvh.com/default.aspx
http://allequinedentistry.com/index.php
http://www.docmarx.com/