Programs Blog

Thank You to Hosts in Anguilla

October 31, 2024

Thursday, October 31, 2024 
Location: Crocus Hill, Anguilla 

Weather: 83˚ F, overcast, bugless 

The days have been fraught with heat, snorkel mask tan lines and Apple Jacks for breakfast. Anguilla has provided the students and staff of SEA with memorable experiences, primarily thanks to our host Chrissy at the Brookland Island View apartments. Departing from our big yellow bastion on the hill, we’ve scoured the island in search of real-time conservation efforts and the people facilitating them. Thank you, Chrissy, for providing us with a home base!  

Another big thank you to Chef Ivy for my first and most memorable Caribbean spiny lobster, Josian for the excellent lunches, and Chef Vernon Hughes for some of the best ribs I’ve ever had. Thanks for the sustenance and the good memories made at the dinner table.  

We’ve met a lot of wonderful people in conservation. Starting off by meeting with Clarissa at the Anguilla National Trust, we were given a run-through of the history of Anguilla. From schooners to salt ponds, Anguilla’s people have been reliant on the ocean as an economic vehicle, primarily due to the dryness of the land. Running between St. Maarten and Anguilla for whiskey to thank neighbors for farm labor, local sailors have demarcated much of Anguilla’s recent history. Shipbuilding as an industry, as well as tourism, has provided some employment for the island, but these industries face outward towards the sea. Clarissa and the Anguilla National Trust provide the island with terrestrial conservation work like protection from invasive species. 

After hitting up Sandy Hill Bay and Shoal Bay for our reef surveys, we bunkered down to let a tropical depression pass. We then met employees of the Anguilla Department of Natural Resources. Jasmine and Remone from Fisheries, thanks for a wonderful presentation about the data collection efforts and maintenance of the marine parks of Anguilla. Zoya from the Environmental Department, thanks for your work with mangroves and the engrossing conversation about visiting versus living. Everyone else we met at the Department of Natural Resources, thanks for the tour of your campus. I wish you all the best with the advancement of your careers and hope that all your projects run smoothly. 

Anguilla has been great to us, and I’m sure SEA (and myself) will love coming back. 

Leandro Nuckols, Grinnell College