[Music] thank you thank you 5 00:00:49,690 --> 00:00:51,300 I'm Denisha John and welcome to another episode of ReDiscover St John now for the past five weeks we've explored many different sites within the national park system on St John we've hiked popular trails and toured magnificent Estates that today still hold the stories of their past [Music] now in our last episode we explored lamb Cher Bay and the ruins on the estate that were established in the 1700s today we'll explore greater land survey and about the nationally significant Science Station that has been in existence for over 40 years we will also recap a great season of exploration and rediscovery the lambster bay state is located on the southern coast of Saint John most of the surrounding land as is the case with the most areas within the National Park is undeveloped what this provides is a unique opportunity for visitors to get a sense of what the bay was like centuries ago but juxtaposed to this feature is an aspect of the bay that gives scientists Insight on what future civilizations May encounter with development if you remember the last time we were here in this area we learned about these ruins the remains of what was the lamshar bay estate established in the 18th century to produce cotton but later converted to a sugar estate today we are traveling several hundred meters east of these ruins to learn about greater land survey and the Environmental Research station it contains [Music] lamisher Bay and then we're actually looking over a greater lavisher um the the names the name of lamisher is I guess um debatable but one thing one possible theory is that the bay was originally named uh lime Shore Bay and that slowly changed to lamisher it's a wonderful place um we're really really secluded and like I said before there's no development going on the surrounding Watershed so what we see now is is close as you're going to find anywhere else on the island is how how it was you know 100 years ago um one other really interesting thing about this particular Bay is it was host to project hectite back in the late 1960s in the fall of 1968 the Navy Marine unit the Seabees constructed Camp to house the support staff for this project that's how veers was actually established so the Virgin Islands Environmental Research station was established in Greater lambster Bay in 1966 by the College of the Virgin Islands its purpose was to provide an ideal location for ecological research this station as Jamie mentioned hosted the 1969 and 1970 Tech type 1 and 2 projects and what that was was an underwater habitat for researchers to actually live underwater the first the first project was tektai one where four Aquanauts stayed under for 60 days and it never once came up to the surface so what that enabled them to do is spend a lot of time underwater and you know being able to study 24 hours a day essentially what was going on on the reef and you know with all the different types of fish and lobsters and things like that that was actually stationed right around right around Cabrio point so on Outer Outer greater lavisher that was that project was was ended in 1970. today there's a small Museum within the Veris campsite dedicated to the history of the tech type projects inside the museum you can find pictures and articles of the scientists and the project [Music] [Music] there are also artifacts and scale models of some of the instruments and tools used during the program foreign [Music] this painting depicts the underwater station and the Aquanauts Jaime told us about [Music] these are photos of the scientists appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show a popular American variety show that ran from 1948 to 1971. here they're shaking hands with VI Governor Cyril E King tectite 1 and 2 were also featured in major magazines like National Geographic and Life Magazine a reason why the project gained so much attention is the fact that it was the first nationally sponsored scientist in the sea project it was also the longest of its kind and was the first to feature a team of woman aquanauts [Music] [Music] the main purpose of project tektite was to study the behavior of a small crew in isolated conditions for the national aeronautic and Space Administration and the U.S Navy [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] right now we're standing at the Marine Lab which is part of veers the Virgin Island environmental resource station the Marine Lab itself was built back in the late 60s and was used for a number of different experiments and research purposes back then and it hadn't been maintained for very long um but about five years ago now I think it was the volunteers from veers and with some resources donated from the U.S Geological Survey the entire facility was pretty much overhauled I run this particular area this is the resource facility most of the resources David the marine environment and we have Sunday from out of the world come here to work in a national park in this part of the island and this Resort have an impact and a Caribbean in other words all the Caribbean islands get our Resort from here and we share with our Resorts and they share with their research okay and in time of scientific informations so for example like Antigua Montreal can learn from what we're doing here and we can learn for them we have many research groups coming down from the states mostly from universities we also have a lot of high school groups that come down from the state side we have some local groups that come down as well but all of all the volunteers their primary job while they're here is to take care of those researchers and those School groups and those other types of groups while they stay here so it means cooking for them cleaning up um so my job is to make sure that there are volunteers are organized and can provide the you know the services for those paying guests there and especially in the past few years there's been a lot of different projects going on currently we have a researcher from the University of San Diego who's the field technician for this project-based based in lamisher Bay and Coral Bay and what they're looking at is runoff rates from developed from developed areas in the Watershed and then undeveloped so the comparing contrasting sedimentation in The Bays from areas in the Watershed so you know lamisher being obviously in the park there's any development going on whereas Coral Bay there's a lot of development so we're seeing a lot of differences in the sediment levels and that's you know that's a problematic for the reefs you know covers up the reefs and you know causes lots of problems for them and that would teach us our planning for the islands how to plant the island and Tema development how many house houses how many man make structure is acceptable to have a balance between the environment and humans needs so that's why it's very important to have place like this is a resort laboratory on the outside the U.S Geological Survey comes down quite a bit they do a lot of uh a lot of research on the different types of fish down here Montclair State University they're studying seagrass habitat and Mangrove habitat and with the deterioration of mangroves a lot of the fish populations are moving out into the sea grasses and vice versa so there's a change in in habitat for a lot of animals based on what what's been happening with development on the land a lot of resources they'll say the Caribbean and other part of the wall and again many other parts of the world were able to develop their home or their land or their property draw funny resource from here it's amazing it sounds like we who live here we do not know that and we will see this area here so wow it's very pretty it's pretty let's develop it but you don't realize it's a laboratory in itself and they help us and preserve what you have and develop an island to be ecotourism a Heritage tourism so it's good to know about you to go to know about the environment drastic changes many times people look at laboratories as indoors but they love to be outdoors too and it's an outdoor Laboratory [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] sometimes [Music] [Music] it's amazing to know that such a huge project was conducted right here in the Virgin Islands at greater lambster Bay and that studies are still being conducted today at that site I had a great time learning about the area and the tech type project make sure you take some time out to visit lamsher Bay and the Bears campsite and Museum it's been an absolute Joy exploring the island of Saint John all those small and mass it contains an abundance of historical significance and natural beauty foreign [Music] from this side and go right up and they make Kano out of the tree okay and Jimmy crack and sound the Richer mentioned how close to close to 150 minutes so that's a huge Street wow and they can kayak from South America and from Arlo And Caribbean region foreign animals so our features are real broad like the lips and no so you know like the results I guess is the most significant is the petroglyphs which were early Rock carvings done by Taino Indians and the early thousands through 1000 through 1400 A.D and they are seen nowhere else in the Virgin Islands over the edge of a different country how these Patrick get here okay but this particular African this is a steam engine but before the steam engine with the animal Mill Animal Mill was here where it grind the cane what happened from starting from the 17th to 1800s it starts off with a windmill okay and the animal milk and then later on Advanced to the steam engine foreign [Music] there was one more big important step and that was to create level land on these hillsides and you do that by cherishing [Music] picture St John with virtually no trees but with giant stone walls everywhere with 10 12 foot sugar cane growing on those level areas a totally different site as what we would see today growing commonly and Sandy open Sunny areas our trees known as starvation fruit laying around the birds will eat at the donkeys we'll eat it you could eat it but it wouldn't be very nutritious and it wouldn't be very enjoyable so you'd only eat it if you were starving and if you were to pick it up and smell it you would see why they call it starvation fruit smells like rotten cheese because this is the art of water just do this beautiful the walls are extremely thick and if you see more Coral inside in here and a different kind of design of the coral downstairs there is a dungeon downstairs of the winter actually in here now if you're in the breeze the wind coming from after Atlantic Ocean I think it was designed it was designed first of all because due to the windmill we designed to to turn that's part of the sugar process the wind come from Atlantic and turn the wheel I know I would say this is the dungeon where they used to keep slave if you misbehave you could be here for a couple of weeks a couple of months and of course once they shut the door they are like people and everything here is in darkness I don't know about how many people with this one here looking can hold more than 10. and as I mention I need to be here for quite uh first of all [Music] foreign [Music] 33 when they have this little buttons in John and there's two setting up Saint John where the slave jumper and this is one a significant area basically what happened that particular was a very bad year when the Danish government the established 19 code it lasts for example if we run away he's being caught they can contact your neck across your foot other thing too that same year the water hurricane and after the hurricane a whole lot of bugs the crops and display was really unreads because of these codes and of course they decided to go the entire Island [Music] okay Mr Davis this is finally it Yep this is Ram's Head and when they got here the islamicom jump over this cliff for the freedom instead of being captured much like Mary's Point like maybe a point now when I did that we today we consider being they commit suicide but back then to them when I jump over the guy back to Africa [Music] the caliph is poison this particular plan go away back from the Native American hair in a Caribbean Hansen John I tried The Voice this plant was used by the tahinos to Carib akalinos and enslaved African up to the early 1960s they will take the plant the bath after it they peel it up to put it in a sack unless for example the pan right over there or along the coast when stream the shake it in the Stream and what it does it's quarter of the oxygen in the water and the fish come on top of the water and they pick up the fish this Sal pan this is in Saint John this is the pan that makes out you start all in the air between April May June need a dry period this particular plant milk salt so historically the focusing done come here to collect salt to cook we call it rock salt this is the only pan that we have in the water that makes up over the years salt disappear but here this is protected [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] 's absolutely amazing um there's like I said there's a nice little ledge system just on the other side and so a lot of a lot of reef fish like to hide underneath the ledges um and at night they like they all come out and play and feed so you we get a lot of puffer fish lobsters eels surgeon majors get a lot of a lot of marine life out here [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] we just got up from a dive we were under for almost an hour and we were swimming down there with uh seeing all kinds of fish we saw schooling French grunts we saw a couple of lobsters and then Rashawn pointed out a crab at the end that was really cool on the way back big cleaning crab underneath the ledge every place has its own like special assemblage of of the different marine organisms whether the coral fish or creatures but one of the things that I find in the U.S Virgin Islands is just so many of our reefs here are shallow in St John and St Thomas that we have a lot of sunlight a lot of color especially on the underside of Ledges where the sun doesn't shine that's where the uh the really colorful encrusting sponges that are red orange yellow so we have a lot of warm colored um you know creatures Coral I should say and that makes it really colorful if you've never done this before you should definitely come out and do this this is is just a totally different world I want to thank you for joining me on this season of ReDiscover St John and I hope that you join me as we continue our adventure to the capital island of Saint Thomas [Music] so until then always remember to cherish your home this beautiful island for most of all cherish each other foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music]