Lobster Symposium - Books by Eric Douglas

More than 150 people attended the opening presentation of the “Symposium of Spiny Lobster” that began today in La Ceiba, Honduras. The meeting is all about the sustainability of the lobster harvest, throughout the Caribbean, with a focus on lobster here in Honduras. And it just so happens I’m on the agenda, too!

Ok, I knew I was coming down to lecture and provide training for the boat captains who take the harvesting divers out to the dive sites. I just didn’t know it was this big of a deal. Pretty impressive, all together. And that opening presentation had some really interesting statistics on the state of lobster harvests as well. I have asked for a copy of it so I can reference it later–after it is translated of course.

After that opening, though, the wheels came off a bit. Last week, I sent a shipment of equipment and materials to use in the training this week so it would be here in time for me to use. And it arrived in San Pedro Sula last Thursday. And that is as far as it got. For some reason it got hung up in customs.

At first they needed additional information from Dr. Mejia. And that delay tripped it up. On Monday the Customs computer system was down. FedEx finally retrieved the box yesterday. When they confirmed it to us this morning, but said it might take a day or two more to get it out to us Dr. Mejia and I jumped in the car and drove three hours up the road to pick it up. That’s one way.

The organizers of the event were very understanding, and actually somewhat apologetic since they knew it was their own governmental system that caused the delay and not us. We’ve rescheduled the four groups of boat captains into three and will get all the training done beginning tomorrow. Just the way it goes. We begin at 8:30 in the morning teaching oxygen first aid. I’ve honestly taught this DAN program to more than 500 students and in a couple different languages (through interpreters) but I am really looking forward to these programs the next few days. I can’t think of a place it has ever been more needed or a single class that I think could have a better chance of directly improving the life and health of a human being. That is pretty cool.

The picture above is of the opening presentation. But more important to me is the fact that the men sitting at that table are the divers themselves. I met a couple of them last year when I was in Puerto Lempira. At the time, they commented that people had come to meet with them before. Those people took pictures, made promises and then nothing happened. It has been slow in coming, and this is a first step, but I hope they see that we are trying to do something to improve their lives.