Sea & Learn what all the noise is about!  Our 8th annual event is being organized now.  Monitor the Experts page for updates. 

Soon to be released:  our new style, comprehensive calendar . 

This page provides stories of this year's event and links to previous stories. 

"Saba's Unique Cloud Forest" book launch
The Opening Night of Sea & Learn 2010 will be highlighted with the official launch of Tom van't Hof's new book.  As always, Opening Night will be October 1st.

Tom van't Hof has just published a booklet on the cloud forest in Saba, entitled "Saba's Unique Cloud Forest". The cloud forest on the top of Mt. Scenery is unique because the Mountain mahogany is the "signature" tree in Saba's cloud forest, whereas it is uncommon or absent in other Caribbean cloud forests. In addition, the Saba Mountain mahoganies can reach a height of 50 ft, while canopy height in other cloud forests seldom exceeds 20 ft. However, very little research has been done to describe the characteristics of the Saba cloud forest.  

The author, a biologist and conservationist who has lived on Saba since 1986, provides the reader with a compilation of available information on the cloud forest, combined with his own unique observations. In particular he describes how the climax state of this forest ended in 1998 following a series of major hurricanes and how it has evolved since. A fascinating tale, filled with information never published before, of natural impact on the environment and nature's resilience. As Van't Hof wrote in the introduction: "Since my observations of the cloud forest represent about the only knowledge available of the history of the cloud forest during a period of intense hurricanes, I decided that I should put my knowledge in writing before it gets lost. The result of that decision lies here before you. "

The book is being shipped to Saba.  More details of Opening Night, the price of the book and the full schedule of the 8th annual event will be updated on this site.

Tom van’t Hof is a biologist and conservationist who has lived on Saba since 1986. He was responsible for the development of the marine parks in Bonaire , Curacao and Saba . As a private consultant he was involved in numerous conservation projects around the world. Economics and financing of marine protected areas became his field of special interest.

Tom was co-founder of the Saba Conservation Foundation and functioned as its chairman for almost 10 years. He is the author of “The Nature of Saba” and of several marine park guidebooks. Together with his family he founded the Ecolodge Rendez-Vous in 2002. He retired in 2009, but he and his wife Heleen Cornet have no intention to move.

Making a trip to Saba to buy the book is a great idea but if it's just not possible, the book is also available on Amazon.com    You can even link to the e-version.

A World Different
has highlighted Saba and the annual Sea and Learn on Saba event.  This unique website's mission is to represent "lodges, hotels, resorts, and camps (and events) around the globe that care about the impact they make, and they have tirelessly – sometimes for decades even – been saving their little part of the world. By simply visiting them you will be helping the surrounding land and communities."
 

How islands get their species
Story and Photo Courtesy Suzanne Nielsen, St. Maarten Daily Herald 

Saba—St. Maarten schoolteacher Paul Fry proved a valuable asset to the Sea&Learn speaker line up when he stepped in Tuesday evening as a guest lecturer, when the scheduled speaker had a medical emergency.

Fry was on Saba the first time only recently, but had a masterful presentation on the unique ways that animal and plant species get to islands and how they prosper there. Fry, from Ontario, Canada, has a degree in Fish and Wild Life Technologies and has been teaching at the St. Maarten Montessori School for the past year.

Fry told the audience at Scout’s Place that islands are created when a piece of land becomes isolated from a larger territory when it becomes surrounded by water (raising sea levels) or when it is created new, such as an erupting volcano. Saba is such a creation.

This means that all living things on the island arrived in some fashion. The first of these would have been plants, propelled on air or sea current, then by swimming, catching a ride on a log, or perhaps piggybacked on a different species, like insects hosted on a floating coconut shell. Birds and bats arrived on their own power.

Fry said that those animals that are small, cope well with water, and are cold blooded would be the most successful: this is seen in the numerous frogs, iguanas, geckos, crabs, snakes, and bugs that make up a good percentage of island life.

Once on the island where they will have few predators, species will adjust to their new surroundings by the process of natural selection, changing and adapting in order to survive. The down side is that natural inbreeding can weaken the species and make it more vulnerable to disasters such as hurricanes, viruses, or introduced invasive species. As an example, Fry mentioned that the introduced Mongoose has exterminated all snake species on St. Maarten, with the exception of the small burrowing thread snake. It is up to humans to make sure that these fragile ecologies are protected from any thoughtless imbalance.

New orchid publication for Saba
Story and Photo Courtesy Suzanne Nielsen, St. Maarten Daily Herald 

SABA--Orchid specialist Stewart Chipka has published the first volume of his work on Saba’s orchids just in time for this year’s Sea & Learn event.

Chipka’s initial volume is spiral-bound, with a soft cover designed to fit into a hip pocket or backpack for trail use. It was printed and bound by Island Communication Services in Windwardside.

The book details species found below the Cloud Forest: the second volume, scheduled for next year, will deal with orchids found in the Cloud Forest. Chipka said that eventually he would combine the two volumes into a one-volume hardback for libraries.

The 70-page volume is divided into sections, beginning with an engaging, personalized author’s introduction on what brought Chipka to Saba initially, and what intrigued him enough that he is now resident here. In the meantime, Chipka has founded the Saba Biological Research Foundation and published on some of the 27 species that he has located on the island since his first Saba trip in 2002.

The book gives the layperson a straightforward introduction into the complexities of the orchid family. By choosing the abundant “Ladies’ Lash orchid” as his model, Chipka makes orchid structure, pollination, and dispersal easy to follow. A more in-depth treatment of the origins of the island and how plants got here provides necessary background.

In the field guide section, Chipka profiles 17 species he has found in different island quadrants. Pictures of the species in flower make identification simple, but Chipka has taken care not to give exact locations, since he had bad experience with specimens disappearing from his scientific studies when they were labelled along the trails. However, interested readers will undoubtedly be nature lovers who know to leave living plants where they grow, and should readily identify the species with the help of the excellent photography.

The book is currently only available on Saba. The author is donating part of his book sales to help sponsor the free month-long Sea&Learn nature series. Autographed copies of the book are available throughout October for $20 at the Sea&Learn tent at Lambee’s Place. Chipka will be on hand for personalized dedications of his book at this Saturday’s Sea&Learn lecture at 5:30pm, Tropics Café.

Sea & Learn starts with a shark attack!

Story and Photos Courtesy Suzanne Nielsen, St. Maarten Daily Herald 

SABA—This year’s month-long nature series, Sea & Learn, got off to a rousing start Thursday evening with a most popular subject: Great White sharks!

Lt. Governor Jonathan Johnson welcomed the packed crowd and said that Sea & Learn is an important economical and educational addition to the island in the month of October, “It’s value cannot be measured,” he added.

The educational value showed up at that moment as the sharks actually came dancing onto the Scout’s Place stage. These were the youngest members of the Sparkie Theatre Group with wonderful full head masks disguising the six youngsters as white sharks, hammerheads, and so forth. The exuberant moment was a great opening act, but presenter shark expert Mark Marks had no problem keeping up the momentum.

Marks, who has spent years in isolated spots doing field research on shark behaviour, told a rapt audience that he dives with the sharks, rather than observe them from a cage. He confirmed via his extraordinary pictures – up close and very personal – that this method has brought sensational results. The audience enjoy photos of sharks on a full-body breach, eight to ten feet out of the water and well as in agressive attack on Sea Lions, Elephant seals, and other prey.

Marks has studied Great Whites in South Africa, and off the west coast of North America stretching from Oregon to California to Guadalupe Island, Mexico. He said sharks have very distinctive markings and he can identify hundreds of individuals from these alone. He also showed a video of the implantation of a transistor in the shark, and these data have added greatly to the knowledge of shark movements. In one case, Marks was able to track a Great White for a full 24 hours for the first time ever.

On Friday, Marks talked to Saba Comprehensive School students about his scientific work, and will give another Great White shark lecture next Monday at 5:30pm at the Brigadoon Restaurant in Windwardside. All public lectures are free. The lecture series schedule is constantly updated on line at http://seaandlearn.org.

Sea & Learn featured in American Dive Magazine

Nature Programme starts October 1

Story and Photos Courtesy Suzanne Nielsen, St. Maarten Daily Herald 
 

SABA—The island’s yearly Sea & Learn nature programme is featured on a four- page spread of the October issue of the scuba magazine Sport Diver, the official publication of the Padi Diving Society. Publication of the article was timed to coincide with the Opening of the programme this Thursday.

Sport Diver E-Link

Featured in the Sport Diver article are Kathleen Dudzinsky, director of the Dolphin Communication Project, Vince Capone who uses underwater sonar to discover wrecks, and Saba’s own Tom van’t Hof, who lectures about roller-coaster history of the island’s Cloud Forest at the top of Mt. Scenery.

Opening night of Sea & Learn 2009 is October 1, 5:30 at Scout’s Place Restaurant. Lt. Governor Jonathan Johnson will open the month-long programme, which is open to all. Registration is only required for certain day field trips. Thursday’s opening session will feature shark expert Mark Marks, a research biologist from Oregon. Marks is a returning guest speaker and appreciated for his dynamic presentations. Marks will get impressive competition from the Saba Youth Theatre Group, “the Sparky Theatre Club,” who will perform in their delightful fish costumes.The programme began seven years as a way to attract tourists to the island in the slow month of October. Nature experts and scientists are invited to the island, where, in exchange for a free stay, they participate in evening public lectures at island restaurants, invite interested parties to accompany them on Marine Park and terrestrial field trips, and spend lots of time at Saba’s elementary and high school, to bring this generation in contact with the natural world. In addition, the youth programmes of the Saba Conservation Foundation- Rangers, Scouts, etc. - has age-specific field trips for the younger crowd. 

Many of the participating experts are world known and have published extensively. Main organizer is Lynn Costenaro of Sea Saba who has managed to get funding from the Prince Bernard Foundation, AMFO, and many local businesses. She is expecting about 15 speakers, so that there can be about three lectures a week. Sign-up and scheduling information will be available at a tent in Lambee’s Place. Information is also available online at seaandlearn.org.

Scientific team has a closer look at Saba’s endemic lizard

Saba part of a larger Caribbean Study 

Story and Photos Courtesy Suzanne Nielsen,
St. Maarten Daily Herald 

Quick, and seen everywhere, indoor or outside, that is the famous Saba endemic lizard, Anolis sabanus, found nowhere else on earth.  

I have spent years trying to get a close-up photo of one of these fast movers and have never really succeeded, so I was surprised to learn that Dr. Susan Perkins and grad student Bryan Falk had no difficulty capturing over 50 of the critters during a two-hour morning hike down the Spring Bay Trail.  

To make the point, Bryan grabbed his special fishing pole, and within 30 seconds of leaving the cabin where they are staying at the EcoLodge, he was putting a loop around the neck of an Anolis just a step away from the stairs. Susan, who has a quick eye, is just as comfortable catching them by hand. Impressive...not nearly as illusive as I had thought! At any rate, there are plenty around to practice on: it is estimated that Saba is home to seven million “sabanuses.” 

When their week was over, the scientists sampled over 400 lizards from various altitudes and areas on Saba’s five square miles. The location of each capture area is carefully determined by Global Positioning System (GPS) and noted for each specimen acquired.  

Susan knows Saba well since she has been coming here for 13 years and last participated in Saba’s October nature/environment program “Sea and Learn,” in 2005. Bryan was on the island for the first time, but will return for more sampling: he is just at the beginning of gathering his data. The final study will be presented as Bryan’s PhD dissertation and will be complete in two to three years.  

Their forays into the Saba bush took them to the Crispeen Track, Ladder Bay, Well’s Bay, Troy Hill, Spring Bay, Sandy Cruz, the Sulphur Mine and the top of Mt. Scenery. That’s lots of territory…especially when each trip is made twice: once to collect the lizards and back again to return them to their habitat. Lizards are territorial so it is important to put them back on home turf. 

Why do we care?

Susan, who is an Associate Curator of Microbial Systematics and Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and Bryan, a PhD student at the Museum’s Richard Gilder Graduate School, are continuing work begun on Saba in 1989. The previous study carried out by researchers from the University of Vermont (including Susan when she was a PhD student herself) looked specifically at the two parasite species that cause malaria in the anole. No one is exposed to malaria since this is not the human variety and therefore cannot be transferred to humans. 

The initial Saba Anolis studies seemed to indicate that the lizard originated from nearby St. Croix or St. Maarten. After in-depth DNA studies, however, it seems that Anolis sabanus is related to an anole from Guadaloupe, and even the malaria parasites are similar to those from Guadeloupe’s lizards. The Guadaloupe anole, Anolis marmoratus girafis, has similar spots, and this ancestral relationship has been supported by genetic investigation. 

This new eight-day Saba study by Susan and Bryan is part of a larger Caribbean study to determine what parasites are carried by anoles and whether their parasites are the same species. Bryan will conduct comparative studies on other islands in both the Lesser and Greater Antilles. He hopes to include Cuba, but that depends on political changes that will allow him access. 

The Lesser Antilles islands are home to many unique species of Anolis lizards, and now these studies will allow the scientists to see if the parasites show the same evolutionary patterns as their hosts. This information could tell them that the lizards sometimes move between islands--accompanied by their “on board” parasites, of course.  

If the lizard parasites are different, it indicates that the lizards have not traveled from island to island but have stayed long enough in one spot for the parasites to change and to speciate, an evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. The bottom line, so to speak, is to help to indicate lizard movement patterns around the islands and to help us better understand how parasites move about the environment and change (or not) as they encounter new hosts.

Scientific lab set up at EcoLodge

After their morning lizard harvest on Saba’s trails, the scientists return to their small cabin at the EcoLodge where they have installed their scientific equipment—nothing too elaborate (nothing needs to be plugged!) for the initial processing. The lizards have each been placed in a numbered, clear plastic zip-lock sandwich bag, which looks like it normally holds a ham-on-rye. This unique number follows the specific lizard through the entire process. The number will have all the statistics (weight, size, sex, etc.) on that lizard, including the longitude and latitude from the general area where it was captured, determined by the GPS unit that is one of their tools-in-trade.   

In the confined quarters of the cabin, Bryan reaches over to pick a plastic baggie from the bucketful collected that morning on the Spring Bay trail. He first weighs the lizard, leaving it in its plastic bag, which is suspended from a gauge that gives him its weight. He removes the animal to measure its length from the end of its snout to its vent, i.e., the anus.  

He inverts the lizard tummy up to show me some small yellow/brown spots, which are the mites, small parasites related to spiders that live on the skin of the lizards. These are just visible without magnification and hide in the armpit, at the vent, and around the male’s dewlap. Bryan removes these and puts them into a small, numbered vial filled with alcohol. Other parasites live in the gut of the lizard, and with just a little encouraging pressure from Bryan, the lizard poops out these nematodes. Bryan points to a pinworm, as fine as a silk thread…these also go into a vial for detailed study back at the Museum. When Bryan has completed his part, he passes the lizard over to Susan. 

What a population hosted by this little beastie--parasites on the skin, in the gut…but also in the blood stream! Susan performs the surgery by snipping off the very tip of one toe in order to express blood onto a piece of white filter paper, next to where the lizard’s unique number is written. Each filter paper will hold five-to-seven lizards’ unique blood samples. She said a lizard could grow back its tail, but not its toe.  

The missing toe can also serve as a marker…the team will be on the lookout next year to see if any caught lizards are missing toe-tops clipped during the current study. No harm done, Susan says. They found two lizards without whole feet or legs and getting along just fine! Many are missing or have regenerated tails. The lizard can lose its tail in combat, by trauma, or…by voluntary sacrifice when it tries to foil its predator by dropping its tail to skedaddle out of the way sans tail but with its life, while the predator (Pearly-eyed thrasher, hawks, and the racer snake) toys with the dropped appendage. Quite a trick of nature! 

When Susan has completed her part, she puts the lizard into the black mesh, enclosed bucket full of dried leaves so that the lizards have some protection from one another. They are territorial, and some of those lost appendages were sacrificed in battles over space and love life. The scientists will take the bucket back along the same trail they walked over in the morning, and deliver the lizards back where they were collected, with no fatalities. No lizards are taken back to the Museum laboratory, only the parasites. Susan says that this year’s the anole population seemed to be abundant, but young…perhaps many were harmed by last year’s storms.  

The Saba Conservation Foundation (SCF) assisted the scientists in procuring from appropriate authorities all the permits they needed to take their samples back to the Museum. The Museum insists on proof that all scientific work was undertaken legally. 

For those interested in more information, the SCF Trail Shop in Windwardside has copies for purchase of the first lizard study, which was undertaken by Vermont University: “The Saban Anole, The Story of a Unique Lizard on a Small Caribbean Island,” 1996, written by Susan’s PhD advisor, Dr. Joseph Schall.

Sea & Learn Networking to Save Turtles
and Recycle Beach Glass

Jo Bean, Saba's renowned glass artist, has been a sponsor of Sea & Learn for a number of years.  As a long time diver and resident of Saba, she has produced glass art from seahorses and turtles to treefrogs.  During Sea & Learn 2008, Jo Bean spent time with Jeffrey George who is the curator for Sea Turtle, Inc. based out of the South Padre Island, Texas. 

When Jo learned that some of our neighboring islands are still (legally even) hunting sexually mature turtles, she pledged to make a difference.

Two years ago, Jo met Karen Eckert, a Sea & Learn guest lecturer, the director of WIDECast.  In cooperation with WIDECast, the Beach Bottle Bead Project began on nearby St. Kitts.  The program is designed to help provide fishermen and their families with an alternative income to replace the money they would earn harvesting turtles. In St. Kitts close to 200 breeding age sea turtles are harvested each year. It takes an average of 25 years for a sea turtle to reach breeding maturity; taking between 100 and 200 of these reproducing turtles has a major impact on future generations. Turtle eggs are often also harvested, the effects of that action quite obvious.

The Beach Bottle Bead Project uses recycled bottle glass to make beautiful beads and jewelry. The products have small educational labels and will be sold in local gift shops as well as international ones. There is already a great interest at research centers and States-side aquariums and zoos to market these beautiful beads as not only attractive jewelry, but also a way to support the stopping of turtle harvesting, with recycling glass bottles as an added bonus.

Locals on Saba are encouraged to help support this project by making beads that can be sold to support these projects. Heineken (green) beer bottles and Harvey's Bristol Cream (blue) bottles can be transformed in to some of the most popular beads.  Or buy some Bottle Beads for gifts. Ideally the project on St. Kitts will be the first of many, as there is already interest in Costa Rica, Trinidad, Guyana, the Dominican Republic, and Surinam. Jo Bean will take all the support we can give her.

For more information about sea turtle populations, go to www.widecast.org. 

Saba trails to be precisely surveyed
©Photo courtesy Suzanne Nielsen, St.Maarten Daily Herald

SABA—Paul Illsley, a professional mapmaker or cartographer, has volunteered his skills to the Saba Conservation Foundation (SCF) to establish the exact longitude, latitude, and elevation of Saba’s trails by Global Positioning Surveys (GPS). 

Illsley took a break from teaching at the Nova Scotia Community Collage for a week on Saba. He arrived fully equipped with his scientific equipment: three hand-held GPS units, which together would hardly fill a woman’s pocketbook. Regardless of their compact size, the high-powered units can tell within a few meters (even up to 10 cm) the precise coordinates as well as the altitude of any point on Saba. 

Taking GPS readings on Saba is complicated by the terrain and the canopy cover, which make it sometimes difficult for the GPS units to pick up the satellite signals they need to do their work. On Tuesday, Illsley had to abort his trip up the Mt. Scenery staircase from Windwardside after just a few hundred meters when it became clear that the satellites were not yet in an optimal position to make the strenuous climb worthwhile. He postponed until later in the day. 

Illsley said that in the week he is here, he hopes to do at least half of Saba’s Trails. SCF Manager Jan den Dulk said, “We don’t know how accurate the trails on the current map are, so the purpose of this GPS work is to pin them precisely.” Knowing the trail contours (steepness) will help hikers estimate the difficulty of the various hikes. 

Illsley will put his new data together with the most recent contour map information, which he has already entered into his computer. The resultant map, which will take several months to compile, will also give information interesting to other parties. He will be able to show inclines or slopes and compass orientations. These data could be interesting to a house or road builder, for example. The incline information could be used to help athletes during the annual triathlon and botanists looking for specific agricultural zones.

Geophysical study to precede drilling on Saba
©Photo courtesy Suzanne Nielsen, St.Maarten Daily Herald

SABA—West Indies Power (WIP) CEO Kerry McDonald was on Saba Thursday to update Commissioner Bruce Zagers about the project to drill on Saba for geothermal power. Initially, WIP was to start drilling last November, but those plans were delayed, and in the meantime, potential financiers have asked that a geophysical study first be made to determine more precisely where the top of the underground reservoir is located. Such studies were conducted on all three of the test wells completed on Nevis. 

McDonald said the consulting geophysicists would arrive on Saba the second week of March to start their soundings. For about a month, their scientific instruments will profile quite precisely the contours of the area suspected of containing the pressurized, super-heated underground water. With knowledge of the permeable and impermeable zones, the optimal placement for the small bore test drill can be exactly determined. The area to be researched extends from Tent Bay to Gilles Quarter and from the outskirts of The Bottom down to the shoreline. If all goes well, test drilling could start in May. The fact that this is near the start of the hurricane season is not a deterrent, McDonald said. 

Geologist Trudie Hall (who is married to a Saba medical school professor) has been hired for the fieldwork and to download and process the scientific information that will be sent electronically to specialists for interpretation. McDonald said that Hall was an incredible find on Saba since she has over 10 years of experience in drilling in volcanic areas. 

McDonald told The Daily Herald that at least four interested financiers are in the wings: the US Export-Import Bank, the European Investment Bank, private energy funding, and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. In addition, Siemens AG, an equipment supplier to the project, is willing to extend its financing to the entire process. “It is nice to have so many suitors, especially in this economic climate,” McDonald remarked. 

There was a recent conference (hosted by Siemens AG) on technical aspects of producing geothermal energy held on Nevis, which was attended by 35 persons from the northern Lesser Antilles including representatives from the SSS islands’ GEBE companies. Saba’s Branch Manager Dexter Johnson was there. 

On Thursday evening, McDonald continued WIP’s community outreach by appearing on Dave Levenstone’s local radio program. Previously, McDonald had been on Saba for the Sea and Learn Nature program last October, during which he appeared at local schools, gave a public lecture, and conducted a field trip to the drilling area. The project was also featured in a two-page spread in The Daily Herald WEEKender of November 15. McDonald announced his availability for another public meeting at any time. 

McDonald reassured the radio audience regarding several misapprehensions:  Saba cannot be affected (eruptions or earthquakes) by the use of geothermal power since the underground reservoir is far shallower than the depth at which seismic activity actually happens. In addition, the reservoir is not emptied but the extracted pressurized water is reinjected. He continued that any competition is limited since nearby St. Maarten/St. Martin and Anguilla are not volcanic and thus cannot produce geothermal power. He said that the geothermal power plant is no noisier than Saba’s current passing traffic. As for a new price point for domestic electricity on the island, he said that was up to GEBE, but that it would obviously eliminate current conventional fuel surcharges.

Earth Day trail cleanup on Saba
©Photo courtesy Suzanne Nielsen, St.Maarten Daily Herald  

SABA—This year’s Earth Day observance on Saba called up all the various youth groups that work with the Saba Conservation Foundation (SCF) and the Leos, the youth branch of the local International Lions Club. The traditional coastal cleanup at Fort Bay was not possible this year because the harbour has been closed to recreational activities after a landslide several weeks ago. Two trails were cleaned up instead. 

SCF staff, board members, and about 30 kids youngsters of Junior Rangers, Snorkel Club, Sea Scouts, and some Leos met at 8am and were divided into two groups. One set of younger children and Leos was to sweeping Dancing Place Trail and the other group of older children set off to clear Crispeen trail from end to end.  

SCF Education Officer Sue Hurrell said that the Crispeen group left about six bags of rubbish at Midway Bar and another three at the end of the trail above Kenny’s Dorm for the sanitation department to pick up. Hurrell said that there were—not surprisingly—lots of glass beverage bottles around the Midway bar, but there were fewer plastic bags floating about the trails. 

All volunteers then met at the Eugenius Center in Windwardside for games, soft drinks, and hot dogs and hamburgers. When the girls beat the boys in a tug of war, the boys retaliated by attaching the tug rope to the axle of the SCF truck and gained back their confidence when it took only a few of them to move the truck up the driveway. Each volunteer left with an orange SCF trail whistle as a souvenir of Earth Day.

In Cooperation with Simon Fraser University
SMP Sedimentation Study

Poorly planned land development can result in increased sediment loads that are detrimental to corals.  Researchers from Simon Faser University, Canada, are conducting a study in Saba and throughout the Caribbean to evaluate the effects of different levels and types of sedimentation on coral reefs.  As part of this study, sediment collectors were installed within the Saba Marine Park at Greer Gut, Tent Wall and Poriotes Point to quantify the amount and type of sediment that reaches them.  The Saba Marine Park distributed fliers to the dive centers on Saba to ensure divers neither disturb nor remove the PVC collectors as they are a crucial part of the study. 

There's no reason you can't participate as well.  Remember, Sea & Learn on Saba is fun, it's free and it's for everyone.  For more information or a reservation, email:  info@seaandlearn.org or contact one of our sponsors. 

Read more from our previous events in 2004 and 2003: