A Day in the Life

5:47 am
Oh no- my alarm isn't supposed to go off for another 43 minutes, but the sun is starting to come up and the bush cats have decided to perform the feline version of Braveheart outside my window. Stupid cats...

7:06am
I finally drag my carcass out of bed, sleeping in slightly and blaming the cats for making me do it. Tomorrow I'll probably blame the weird little island chickens...I put on sunscreen and my "Park Uniform", which consists of the nearly-knee length polyester "park green" shorts with a high, 1980s waist band, and a grey t-shirt that says "National Park Service" somewhere beneath the stains and tears. Yeah, super sexy, right? I've inherited about 4 shirts, slightly too large for me. Somehow, if we're rolled into a company or agency with other types of scientists such as biologists or geologists, or we're stuck with a group of egg-head engineers who probably haven't stepped away from their computers...I guess ever- then archaeologists end up with the hand me downs, the stuff that was broken anyways, and anything that may need to be jerry-rigged before use. Maybe the idea is that we're just going to get it dirty anyways. Which, in the case of these shirts, is true- I managed to get my hands on a couple of half-way decent ones, and just a day or two at Hassel had them looking "rugged" and "worn in".

7:45am
Jessica and I descend down the driveway, coffee mugs in hand, and make our way through town to the NPS truck that is parked at the visitor center. Cruz Bay is always bustling this time of day. A flood of people make their way up Center Line Road, just off the 8 am Ferry from Red Hook as we make our way down. Kids are on their way to school, so we take advantage of the Crossing Guards' presence to cross the intersections that only barely resemble a cartesian design. At the NPS Visitors Center other employees are congregating- some stay here, at the main office, some go up the hill with Jessica and I to the resource management offices, some are off to the maintenance building or places I don't even know exist yet. Here I get into the 1 ton, rear-wheel drive, manual transmission pickup and Jess and I, and sometimes Devon, who can leap into the back of the truck from the ground, head up the hill to the offices.

8:05am
I leave Jess and Devon at building 4; they're biologists, and probably begin to get their dive gear ready to go maintain buoys or monitor reef beds. I head back down the hill to maintenance, and put ice in the water coolers for our own day out in the field. It is about this time that the "Grey Ghost" comes down the hill- an old, bondo grey Blazer with a cracked windshield, a hole in the dashboard where important car-type stuff should be, and some mysterious wires that drag out the bottom like a tail. It holds the interns. They pull into Mongoose Junction and hit the Deli Grotto for sandwiches for the day. It's another great place to run into NPS employees who are also there for lunch, or grabbing coffee and a quick breakfast.

8:30am
We are all back at the office, usually waiting on Ken. Eric fills the coolers with ice, Andreas gets the electronics bag together, with our multiple GPS units, walkie-talkies and cell phone. Everyone else is assessing what other equipment we may need for the day and packing the truck- when Ken comes in we're on e-mail, taking care of the administrative bits that are necessary before we embark.

9:30am
Theoretically, we are leaving the dock by this time. I stress the theoretically. Our boat is the Haulover, again, a hand-me-down from the NPS Rangers who need faster and better boats to run down drug smugglers and antiquities thieves. It is a 25 foot Boston Whaler with twin 225 engines, which apparently means it can only be driven at one speed. We stow everything in the hold, and everyone takes their positions. The trip to Hassel takes about 30 minutes on the way there, and sometimes as much as 45 minutes on the way back. It can be very rough- we often hit big swells that cause our feet to leave the deck. Ken enjoys this entirely too much. Reapply sunscreen.

10:00am-3:30pm
Once we get to Hassel Island, the real work begins. Docking can be tricky. We pull into a historic slip that was built in the 1800s for Careening (cleaning and repairing) ships. There is no modern dock, so we tie up to abandoned machinery that was left to rust on the sea wall, the boat slamming against it until we get the extra bumpers in place. Everything we loaded has to be unloaded and hiked to whatever site we are working on that day, and change into long pants and heavy work boots. Sometimes we break up into multiple teams and work on various sites.

At the Leproscarium we clear, grid, surface collect, excavate, map, and photograph. The leproscarium covers an extensive area, and for this field season we just focused on the heart of the site. It was gridded in 2x2m blocks; we use the Pythagoreum Theorem (A2 + B2 = C2) to lay out grids with perfectly parallel lines and 90 angles, using just a couple of pull-tapes. It is surprisingly accurate and easy, and a basic archaeological skill. I also keep a list of commonly used grid-sizes with the hypotenuse lengths so no one (especially me) has to do math (and screw it up) in the field. We then conduct a full surface collection. Because the site is going to be cleared and interpreted for visitor access, we did not use a sampling strategy, although given the amount of artifacts that were on the surface, in ideal circumstances it would have been a good idea. Mandy also laid in 3- 50cmx50cm test units around the foundations of the structures that were present. The structures, units, grid and collection areas, as well as significant topographical features, were mapped using a Brunton, or mirror, compass.

For the early sites survey we spend much of our time cutting trails, following the ridge top, historic maps and surveys done in previous decades to find our sites. We cut through Mother-in-law's Tongue, a succulent that grows about 3 feet high in thick patches. It is my favorite because it isn't pokey or poisonous, and is easy to hack through with a machete. The only down fall is it becomes very slippery to walk on. There are cacti, both as tall as trees which are easy to walk into or grab mistakingly, and little suckers that like to bite ankles; Pinguin, which is similar looking to an aloe or century plant, but that has tiny, sharp spikes edging the leaves- Historically the British planted it around their forts on this island for added protection as it is like razor wire, and impossible to just walk or climb through; Christmas Bush, which is actually a fairly large tree that has rows of leaves that look like those of a Holly Bush that have been mutated and are now evil, with a big spike coming off the tip of each one, and high concentrations of the same toxin found in poison ivy; Catch-n-Keep, which has "cat claw" reverse thorns, and is really fun to pull off your face; and a variety of other spiky, stinging plants. That's why we use machetes. Don't forget, we still have the excessive heat and humidity to deal with, as well as the tarantulas, termites, and Jack-Spaniard wasps to deal with. We hack our way into the bush, taking turns to lead the pack with machete or clippers, although for some reason Vibe and I took an almost perverse pleasure in killing all things green in the jungle, and the guys seemed to content to let us do it.

When we find a potential site, usually based on foundations or an artifact scatter, we record it by mapping and taking GPS points, collect artifacts, and make notes, beginning to assess the site and compare it to what we know from the historic record.

Somewhere in there in eat lunch- trust me, we never skip lunch. My preferred field food is tuna and crackers or cookies. I used to bring those little foil packs of tuna, but Ken gave me a P-38 (itty-bitty military issue can opener) insisting that the cans hold more and are cheaper. I eat it right out of whichever package- about 50% of the time I forget my camping silverware, and so have to rely on the saw blade of my Gerber, a pen, or whatever else may be handy in my pack. I think its good for the immune system. Put on more sunscreen.

Alternative Day
A typical day after the field work is over involves getting the data into various computer programs, completing notes, washing and analyzing all the artifacts, then bagging and labeling them for curation, and finally, writing up reports for the whole thing. Typically you would devote about 2/3 of your entire project time to lab work, and only 1/3 to field work. It's where the real science gets done- otherwise, you're just a looter.

4:00-ish pm
We straggle back to the boat, dirty, sweaty, weighted down with artifacts and comparing our various battle wounds from that day. Again, the boat gets loaded, sunscreen is applied for the trip home, and we're off. Sometimes, when morale is particularly low, we moor across from Caneel Bay and take a quick swim, changing into our suits on the boat. Somehow, it just makes everything much better.

5:00- or so, pm
We get back to the NPS dock on St. John, and head back up the hill to unload our equipment. I'm usually late, so Jess has gone home already, and I drive the truck to the visitor center and shuffle back to the apartment where I shower and will myself back out for dinner with the crew. Even though I often just want to go to bed and die, on any project these communal dinners are great for letting everyone have some down-time together, and really helps keep the crew close. It's part of what makes us a family, and helps us work together in stressful conditions.

10:00 pm
I am asleep, practically dead to the world. I don't even hear the bush cats outside my window...

Everyone, Meet, Everyone

So far, my time spent with the Park has been a crazy whirl-wind of jungle, rough seas, and heat. It has been spent with a really good crew.

Vibe and Andreas were our two historians from the University of Copenhagen whom we dragged out of the archives and made Hack their way through the bush to find the earliest historic sites on Hassel Island. Vibe is an amazing friend- we were practically inseparable for four weeks. We got through more than one day with just complete, uncontrollable giggling. We didn't remember what was so damn funny later on, but we were pretty sure that it was comic gold. Andreas is just about the sweetest person you could meet, as well as a hip Ska-reggae musician. He was my laundry buddy- the two of us would be folding everyone else's underwear, usually while they were getting us dinner.

Casper was our Danish archaeologist, and was pretty cool for one of those underwater, prehistoric guys. He provided interesting insights into Caribbean archaeology in the Danish West Indies, especially over VI Pale Ales at the Tap Room, or on one of the killer hikes in the Park.

Mandy and Eric were Team USA! Mandy is a graduate student at the University of Tennessee; I'm wicked jealous that she has gotten to study on the famous "body farm". She also says deliciously evil things in a perfectly sweet voice- it seems to take awhile for people to catch on. Obviously, I really, really like her. Eric was our "little brother", an undergraduate from Beloit College in Wisconsin who was here trying to figure out if he wanted to do archaeology- I think after Hassel Island the answer is probably no. He was also my SCUBA buddy, which was way fun.

Jessica is my roommate. Also NPS, but smart enough not to be Cultural Resources; she is one of the biologists for the park. She also puts up with living with me, and hasn't kicked me out yet so I feel like I'm doing pretty good.
The LCS team visited us from Atlanta for a week: Josh, Beth, Cynthia, David and Bethany. We kicked off their departure with margaritas the size of our heads at Margarita Phils before dancing the night away Larry's Landing. They deserved it after what we put them through in the field.

Last, but not least, is Ken, Park archaeologist, captain of the Haulover, UNESCO petroglyph expert, leader of the whole gang. Ken defies words, he's more of an experience.

All eleven us (except for Eric, who no one knew was arriving later that night) spent what Vibe and I call "that one perfect day" on and off the boat. First of all, I find it hard to believe that the poor Haulover can hold eleven people, plus our equipment, but she did, chugging across water between Cruz Bay and the harbor in Charlotte Amalie. The week had been long and difficult- we often were split into three or four groups, each surveying for our own projects. I had spent most of the week with Bethany, Cynthia and Josh doing LCS survey on historic structures, )which was really fun since I hadn't ever done it), while Mandy continued working on her leproscarium, Andreas, Vibe, and her trusty machete Arthur hacked through razor-wire sharp pinguin and christmas bush, making trails all over that damn island, and Casper mapped and recorded his coal barge wreck. Beth and David were doing their own survey on St. John and on Hassel. By the time Thursday rolled around, we were exhausted, crispy from the sun and scarred from viscous insect bites and catch-n-keep. I think Vibe and I were ready to mutiny, and I'm pretty sure that we could have mustered the rest of the crew to follow suit. But when Ken walked into the office that morning, he looked just as haggard as the rest of us. There would be no going to Hassel that day. Instead, the LCS Team needed to see various sites around St. John before they left, and we needed to do the boat version of a "windshield survey" of Turner point, where a 1719 map claimed there was once a fort. We spent the day on and off the boat- snorkeling at Reef Bay above the happy, fat star fish; climbing through the maze of mangrove roots at Coral Bay; climbing on the beach at Browns Bay. We even saw Jessica and Devon, maintaining buoys on the Leatherback. It was happy and lovely, playing in the warm, salty water while it rained softly above us, and unusually calm. We spent that evening at the Beach Bar, seeing off Bethany who was leaving early, and feeling ready for the entire crew to take one final stab at Hassel. The next day we pushed across the ridge top to the Officer's Quarters, and ended at Phils.

Part I: View from a Leproscarium

Well, here I am on St. John again, this damn island.

I left without really saying goodbye, stealing away for the Caribbean without even attending the end of the year party, (for the second year in a row, I know. In fact, it appears I'll miss the beginning of the year party again as well. Sigh). I had good reason this time, laid up in bed during my final weekend at home, with a hurt back of all things. (When did I get so old?)

I'm renting a small apartment in Cruz Bay off of Enighed Estate- they call the little road "The Valley"- with one of the biologists at the park, Jessica. The neighborhood is active, and you can generally hear people speaking spanish late into the night, until they are drowned out by the tree frogs and insects dripping from the vegetation that seems to engulf everything here. Just so I'm not too home sick, I'm usually woken by the chickens that run wild across all these islands, or by the feral cats, or by the epic age-old battle of chicken vs. cat that takes place outside my window as dawn breaks. Fred the Iguana also lives nearby, and early some mornings he is basking on the driveway as I leave for work.

The last month has come and gone- the speed with which time passes has become so cliche that I just can't come up with a witty metaphor tonight. Most of the time has been spent on Hassel Island, a hot, dry little spit of land that lays just across the harbor from Charlotte Amalie. It's mostly uninhabited, except for just a few intrepid souls such as the lovely old sail-maker named Manfred. We all had our reasons for being there- Vibe and Andreas were searching for the earliest sites of occupation, Mandy is investigating the Quarantine hospital (from where I get the name of this section), Casper was researching ship wrecks and anchors, and I was...well, I guess I'm just the muscle.

Hassel is its own special place, isolated and overgrown. We spend our days literally cutting our way through thick bush, with machetes, clippers and anything else we can get our hands on, careful to avoid the christmas bush and catch-n-keep, the first of which is poisonous and the second which is painful. We collect artifacts that are laying on the surface, record the rubble that used to be houses and factories. We occasionally dig holes, although not as often as one would like being an archaeologist.

In the evening we drag our sore and tired carcasses to the Tap Room or Beach Bar, for a bite to eat and a drink, and then are usually in bed early- like grade-school kids early. We have more fun on the weekends, hiking, swimming, sleeping in late. And then its always back to Hassel, to the leproscarium that sits on the hill overlooking downtown Charlotte Amalie and the cruise-ship tourists that invade nearly every afternoon. Its deceptive, the view of the town from the Leproscarium. There is the town, today as it would have been one hundred and fifty years ago, the sounds of the people carrying across the water. The water, at the base of the island, is a royal blue, abutting a thin strip of light tan sand. It seems as if it should be ideal. But there is nearly no breeze; by the time the early afternoon hits it is nearly unbearable there. No swimming in the water just below, no reprieve from the people across the way. In the mid to late 1800s it seems as if individuals with a variety of diseases- leprosy, small-pox, yellow fever- were quarantined on the side of this hill, watching the people in the town and the boats passing just below. The patients there were probably utterly miserable, except for the friends there with them.