An update from Watson Fellow Carolyn Barnwell '07
The immediacy and spontaneity of living in a new culture and environment continually rejuvenates me, even if it is not the best timing. (It is currently two in the morning, and I woke to a monsoon downpour outside my open-air window. It is so loud and powerful, I can’t seem to go back to sleep ... and I realize I have not written a single mass-email since I left the States).
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| Carolyn Barnwell '07 swims with the jellyfish in Pulau. |
I am thousands of miles from New England in what I, of course, expected to be a new culture and environment. Yet, Palau is really a surprising amalgam of Japanese, Filipino, Taiwanese, American and Palauan traditions, foods, and media. The environment has been changed most drastically because of foreign-funded construction projects. Palauans mostly drive Japanese cars (steering wheel on the left, and opposite controls; the first time I cranked the volume the wrong way I was quite surprised to be singing without back-up to a car filled with Palauan high schoolers!). I can easily find Honey Nut Cheerios, Skippy peanut butter, and Clif Bars at the supermarket—amidst the Palauan household staples of white rice, Spam, vegetable oil, soy sauce, and canned tuna. This love affair with canned tuna, despite the availability of hundreds of species of fresh fish in Palau’s waters, is leftover from WW II recovery efforts. Americans donated large quantities of canned food as Palau was switching over from Japanese to U.S. territory status. The (preferentially) tasty, high-sodium Spam was such a hit that after the aid ceased, being able to buy cans of Spam became a sort of status symbol, and now seems like a bad habit. Diabetes and hypertension rates are soaring. But I don’t mean to get caught up in details, I’d rather do some storytelling. I have a few very clear memories from my first overseas trip to Palau when I was eleven years old, which puts me in quite a unique position compared to most outsiders here. I remember the capital before traffic jams, how there was only one resort, and a few restaurants. Swimming in the reputed Jellyfish Lake, made famous by National Geographic, is one of the memories I have maintained and probably glorified for over a decade now.
In ‘95, my father and I got a ride to the lake in a local fishing boat. The fisherman did not want to join us (in fact, I have only met one Palauan adult — a congressman known for his creation of a network of marine protected areas — who has actually been in the lake). My dad and I climbed up and down a steep path of serrated limestone down to mangroves. We waded through this area to get out into the open expanse of the landlocked lake. He and I could not stop exclaiming our delight because we were the only two people in the entire lake, along with almost 13 million golden jellyfish. We waded through murky mangrove roots to enter the landlocked lake. Putting on our snorkels and fins, we started out into the open. One, three, 10, 80 ... the jellyfish increased in number so I could no longer avoid them by swimming around or under them — I began to have to swim through them. It felt like balls of Jell-O on my arms and legs.
Fast-forward to 2007.
I sit on the edge of a wooden dock, talking to a group of divers from Japan, Germany, and the U.S. I ask our Palauan boat driver, “I heard that Jellyfish Lake was closed for a few years because too many tourists were harming the population.”
“Well it is open now, do you all want to go?”
I feel a little surge of excitement in my stomach. I have cherished my memory of swimming through the golden jellyfish with my dad, and only imagined I would ever be able to experience again. Do I really want to go? What if it is not as breathtaking as I remember? Do I want to “ruin” my perfect memory? I see the excitement on the other’s faces and say, “Yeah, let’s go!” We decide to go to the lake (snorkeling only) before we go on three dives near Blue Corner (see pic and New York Times article from 9/23!). I hope our trip will be just as magical as my first time putting my face under the water in Palau.
Now there is a dock built for tourist boats on the island that hosts Jellyfish Lake to tie onto. There’s also a ticket booth and a state employee sitting there to check your $35 pass. I start up the path with my fins and snorkel in one hand, a slimy rope clenched tightly in my other so I don’t fall. The limestone has not yet worn down, it is still craggy and sharp. At the bottom, there is a platform you can walk out onto and jump in, circumventing the mangroves.
The jellyfish follow the sun in a 1-kilometer-long daily migration across the lake, and feed on plankton about 15 feet below the surface. I dive down into the densest area where the orange blobs surround me, and tickle my tummy and cheeks more than anywhere else. I keep laughing aloud through my snorkel and needing to blow out the water that has crept in — it really is as unbelievable and other-worldly as I remembered! The pulsating of the jellyfish creates the rhythm of the place because there are no waves and no sounds.
How we find our answers depends on the questions we ask. Trying to move beyond my original experiential memory, and more recent tourist visit, led me to a team of American and Palauan marine biologists who have been collecting data from Jellyfish Lake for eight years at the Coral Reef Research Foundation. Visitors to the lake usually believe the myth that these jellyfish do not sting because the lake is predator-free. There is actually an endemic sea anemone that ingests passing jellyfish. In addition, a non-native sea anemone that is a known pest was discovered in 2003; unfortunately it was probably introduced accidentally by a visitor. I saw it spreading around the shallow perimeter habitat. I have also learned that there are five jellyfish-filled marine lakes in Palau, and each houses jellyfish with lake-specific genetic and behavioral characteristics. The reason you can only snorkel, rather than scuba dive, is because the lake is stratified and has an oxygen-free lower layer beginning at 40 feet. I had heard the reason the jellyfish disappeared in 1998 was due to too many tourists and sunscreen in the water, which is a myth. The lake became almost vacant during the significant temperature fluctuation of the 1998 El Nino/Southern Oscillation. As I described, it is now again filled with millions of jellyfish. It ends up that the lake has offered a high-quality source of biophysical data and sediment record, and may provide a model system for studying the effects of climate change on community evolution and ecosystem response to climate variation. So now I appreciate Jellyfish Lake for inadvertently providing a long-lived memory, a basis for exploration, and one heck of an experience.
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A few other tidbits:
Palauans do not tend to swim or sail. (“Swimming is for children, sailing is for foreigners”). At least, I have never seen Palauans over the age of 18 go swimming or sailing. These are two of my favorite things to do here, however, when I’m not acting as an anthropologist or talking climate change. So, I have found myself spending time with a welcoming and hilarious group of ex-pats to recreate. I have been sailing with a Czech dentist, Romanian vet, Canadian Alternative Energy specialist, and American Peace Corps volunteer. The adventurous highlight of the month was getting caught in a rain squall at 7:30 p.m. (yes, it was completely dark) after spear-fishing. We had four fish in our bucket, one flashlight, no spare batteries, no wind, a dying engine, and we were trying to navigate through the hundreds of small limestone islands surrounding the port without crashing into anything. Our bodies fueled by raw fish with soy sauce, we successfully found an American woman who lives on a sailboat (as she has for 29 years!) who pointed us in the right direction. Our flashlight slipped off the boat into the sea right as we were tying up at the dock.
Last week I had an extraordinary number of unnerving and fabulous encounters with nature. I was camping (by American standards) in an open-air house that had been abandoned for a few months on a southern island with less than 200 inhabitants. It was strange to be alone in the dark deciphering which sounds I should legitimately be nervous about, and wondering if I had any neighbors that were good at dealing with macaque monkeys who like to steal food. I don’t think I ever really fell asleep. When I first stood up in the morning, a seemingly two-bodied wasp happened to land right on my bottom lip. My heart started racing right away, thinking of the man at the boat dock who asked me when I arrived, “Are you allergic to wasps?” I have no idea! I walked carefully, carefully over to a pot, picked up the lid, blew/spit the wasp into the pot and slammed the lid down so it could not come back for revenge. Phew.
While riding a brake-less bike around the island’s back roads, I almost ran over a few spotted lizards, land crabs, and hermit crabs. It’s also important to always be on the look-out for aggressive feral dogs and (potentially deadly) falling coconuts. Exhausted from a sleepless first night and biking the circumference of the island, I fell asleep easily on my second night. At about 3:30 a.m., I heard a rat scuffle only inches from face. Then my senses startled me bolt upright when the putrid smell of rat urine filled my nostrils. I felt a wave of disgust and anger and fear that I would not sleep for my entire visit to Angaur. I grabbed my sleeping bag, headlamp, and hammock, and relocated. Later that morning, I moved a box filled with the predictable Spam, tuna, soy sauce, and vegetable oil to get some plates and utensils. Behind the box was a headless dead rat smelling of decaying furry animal. I wanted to be tough and deal with it myself, but all I could think about was the rancid smell that woke me up earlier that morning and I wanted to puke. So, I found a local guy out with a machete to come and dispose of it for me. He ended up introducing me to some village elders who wanted to talk about typhoons and climate change. Things were feeling better. That evening, I went running on a banyan tree-lined road and saw handfuls of monkeys climbing around in the trees. The trail loops around the island and parallels coastal limestone blowholes that regularly spew 20 foot geysers. I stopped to watch one particularly active blowhole and enjoy the cool drizzle that was passing through. I looked out to the sea and my eye serendipitously noticed a pod of 8 dolphins swimming and playing in front of me. Right then I decided jellyfish, monkeys, and dolphins make up for the nuisance of insects and rats.
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For those of you who don’t know, I am doing independent research-oriented travel about climate change for one year, on a Watson Fellowship (http://www.watsonfellowship.org). I have been in the Republic of Palau, 500 miles east of the Philippines, since July, and head to Japan in mid-October. I would really love to hear some few-sentence updates when you have a chance!
All my best,
Carolyn