Snapshot of a Day’s Work at Wafer Bay Station
A Day in the Life of Wafer Bay Station Vinicio is the station’s office man, processing administrative paperwork and anything else that comes his way: inventory, daily patrol reports, and the various permissions required by the dive boats. Filander prepares the perfect meal. Beatrice and Daniella are painting the inside of the lower bodega. […]
Going Deep at Cocos Island… Really Deep
A Bigeye Scad noses the submarine I watched this morning’s Channel Seven news with mild interest, more to practice my Spanish than anything else. The rain and resultant flooding continue across Costa Rica, the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is sick, and there was a big cocaine bust somewhere on the continent. Really, I […]
Sore feet, inspiration and hope at the pinnacle of Cocos Island
It’s the tail-end of yet another Sunday, and I’m sitting in my room contemplating the cool air flowing through the industrial-grade screen of my single window, the smell of clean laundry, my sore feet, and today’s hike to the island’s summit, Cerro Yglesias. The troop at the summit My companions for the day were Pablo, […]
Cocos Island: Shark Finning News Report
Thursday night, I was watching the evening news in the salon after dinner with Steven and Roberto when the following report came on (Warning: the video is in Spanish, and has some fairly graphic images of shark finning): To Watch Video Click Here The gist of it (for all you non-Spanish speaking blog readers) […]
Alternate Uses for Confiscated Fishing Gear – Creativity 101
The funcionarios at the Wafer Bay Station have found many uses for confiscated fishing equipment: This hammock is woven entirely of the plastic lines hauled from the water. A path-side lamp has been crafted out of sections of buoy Buoy converted into a hanging pot (hung with gacillas) All clothes lines are strung with fishing […]
The Early Morning Patrol – Painful but critical
Coffee in the stairwell of the Casa de Voluntarios I slept through my 2:45 am alarm this morning and leaped out of bed and out of my room and into the hall in one fluid motion when I looked at my watch and it read 3:02 am. Found the rest of the patrol crew placidly […]
Cocos Island Patrol on an iPhone – Frustration
Notes from the Field – Challenges of a Cocos Island Park Guard This will give viewers an idea of the frustration endured during a Cocos Island night patrol. We spent 17 hours in a small boat being tossed by the ocean. We tried our best to defend the island from poachers. While I know this […]
Cocos Island: A UNESCO World Heritage Site
The nearly full moon rises over the silhouette of the steep, low ridge to the east of Wafer Station, and the brighter stars shine feebly through the moonlight where today’s cloud ceiling has disintegrated. Crickets chirp incessantly in the warm evening air, and white moonlight glints off the ridges of the waxy leaf-blades of the […]
Cocos Island: MarViva: When the Funding Runs Out
A curtain of rain descends over Manuelite I sat bolt upright and seized my watch from next to the bed, terrified I’d missed the patrol boat scheduled to leave at three. I threw on my bathing suit and volunteer shirt, grabbed my rain jacket, and stumbled out of my room and down the stairs, to […]
Cocos Island: Photo Essay: Confiscated Lines
Pictured below is the shed in which all of the confiscated fishing equipment is stored. To give some sense of scale: the blue barrel in the center is a 50 gallon, plastic oil drum. Each white, canvas sack is filled with line, and weighs approximately 40-45 lbs. On the left are the rows of barrels […]
