More Caribbean Breezes

It never gets old!

Once again back in my favorite field site: Playa Pina! Since we no longer have regular access to our canal localities, Pina is one of the few spots left to us where we can hope to do any relevant field work. Plus, Jorge specializes in fossil marine mammals (dolphins, whales, manatees , of which there are plenty to find, so he has a more positive attitude towards the place than Aaron ever did. As far as I'm concerned, the more trips to the Caribbean side, the better!

We took off for Pina around 10:00 AM, a bit later in the morning than usual since low tide was forecast for the middle of the afternoon. Our crossing of the Gatun Locks overlapped perfectly with a passing cargo ship, so we got to watch the whole process without having to wait for all the setup/approach/tug boat attachment, etc. It was surprising, really, just how quickly they can get such a large vessel through those things, once all the hardware is in place -- the boat was secured within the locks and being brought up to canal level within 10 or 15 minutes. When we pulled up to the Pina waterfront at around noon, the sun was shining, there was a nice breeze, the tide was giving us some space to work, and we were ready to go.
Our goal for the day was to finally remove a dolphin skull from a cliff that had been resisting us for the past few visits. We'd already carved out a nice deep trench around the thing and were confident it could be done in just a few hours. Since only so many of us can swing hammers and pickaxes at a time, two of us worked on carving out even more rock around the skull while the rest prospected and pulled out fossils from the tidal flats, including some turtle plastron and carapace and a some kind of really ugly manatee bone that to me looked completely unidentifiable and weathered to bits. Within an hour tragedy had struck hard over at the dolphin skull -- a certain blonde, six foot + someone had tried to chisel out a chunk of sandstone and ended up sending a crack straight through the fossil-containing boulder we had shaped out, halting all progress for fear of everything shattering to pieces. In all fairness though, it was probably bound to happen no matter what. The tide action is our friend in making it possible for us to break through the rock with our hand tools, but with the same hand it also weakens the matrix supporting the fossil, leaving it just as vulnerable and susceptible to breaks.

The plastered dolphin skull.

The fracture proved an opportunity for me to truly shine, for the only way to take care of a crumbling fossil is to wrap it up in a plaster jacket, something I got plenty of practice doing during my first month here! The tricky part in this particular job was that we only had plaster bandages and toilet paper. No foam or felt or saran wrap to protect the exposed bone. So rather than wrapping up the entire boulder as one normally would, I instead had to plaster around the circumference of the boulder and across the front only in those places where no bone was directly exposed, resulting in what basically looked like a half-finished job. With the equipment we had, it was the best that could be done. Frustratingly, the plaster was slow to dry due to the sea spray and the shadow provided by the cliff, and the waves were lapping at our feet before it had finished setting. We had no choice but to leave it for the next day and hope that the plaster would hold up. The bright side was that the next day we'd be able to bring a more complete set of plastering equipment, so we'd be prepared for the worst.

PCP-PIRE Pina Division

Of course, our little excavating crew (the local kids) were hanging around pretty much the whole time we were out working. Although school is back in session for them, they happened to have half a week off and were eager to use our tools, show us any sea life they were able to catch, and ask us questions about our personal lives. This time around they were particularly enthralled by our use of sunscreen and by the fact that none of us have children. There were plenty of opportunities for breaks and sitting around, since there was limited work space and lots of plaster dry time, so I spent a ton of time just hanging out with the kids having them teach me new words. At one point I pulled out my camera to take some pictures of my plaster work and they almost immediately gravitated towards it and insisted that I flip through all the hundreds of photos I've taken since I got here in January and explain what everything was. Doing so sure beat hacking at a rock wall with a pickaxe, so I was more than happy to oblige. They're some really good kids and even though I've only spent a couple of scattered days with them, I'm really going to miss seeing them when I return to the States.

The kids got a hold of my camera!

Postscript: I hurt my back overnight (how???) and when I woke up Wednesday I was without a doubt unfit for the field, so I took a lab day and watched everyone else head off towards beautiful Pina. From what they told me, they had to do the jacket all over again, though this time they had everything needed to do it properly. Again, however, there wasn't enough time between the tides for everything to set properly, so we'll be going back on Friday to finally retrieve that skull. It's causing all kinds of trouble for us!