Thursday, 29 June 2017

Day 4- Snorkel Tour

So I didn't have the best of nights last night shortly after we all went to bed I started getting a killer ear infection most probably from the Jetty jump. This meant I was up for four hours trying to sort it so I could sleep. Eventually after quite a few hot towels on the ear I dropped off. However, the next morning I was meant to be taking a volunteer Claire out on a survey and she is unable to dive down to take photos. I asked her if she still wanted to go to see the turtles she said no, she said she'd much rather just chill as she also didn't sleep very well. I checked this was okay and Maisy said that was fine as there was a survey going on later on. This meant I could catch up with some very overdue sleep. When I woke up I had a wash etc and then sorted through some photos which I've been unable to post due to poor Internet.  I was going through images, then for some reason I looked out the window and saw a squirrel in the tree. In which immediately I grabbed my camera to try and get a photo. Unfortunately the little guy was blocked by a least one leaf each time so was unable to get a decent shot. When the others returned from the snorkel tour with Dan we all headed out for lunch in the Village. I had beef fried rice and it was so good. I'm yet to have a bad meal which has been a relief. After lunch at 2:30 the volunteers who hadn't done the snorkel tour in the morning were supposed to be doing it with me. I wasn't sure if I was going to cause my ear, but I felt better so I risked it. We headed down to the Jetty to find our boat, I had no idea what boat or who to look for. In the end I asked one of the older men sitting down and he said it wasn't here yet, shortly after that the boat did arrive and we got on. The snorkel tour is literally what it sounds like we went round to different popular snorkel sites and look at fish and turtles if there is some. All of the locations on the tour where on the big island. We started off at turtle bay where we did not see any turtles but lots of other cool fish. We then went to PIR which is where we do our surveys. Ramona one of the staff members I have not mentioned yet and one of the volunteers was doing the surveying. Ramona is German and has been working with this project for a while she is really lovely. Anyway as we got there they had just spotted a turtle so we got out to have a look, it was one that frequently comes back recogniseable by a shark bite on one of her flippers. How do we know she's female? This is due to the tail size, females have a very small tail and males have a large tail. We stayed for a while and spotted another turtle however unfortunately it was bombarded by tourists getting too close. Next on our tour was Fish Point this was an area of very shallow water filled with coral, sponges and of course fish. We stayed here for a while and again saw lots of fish, again I'm trying to upload photos and videos but not easy with this Internet. As we were heading back to the boat, I heard one of the girls shout turtle so I swam over. I looked down and there she was, she appeared small but was hard to tell cause of the depth. I decided to dive down and try to film her to get a closer look and as I got closer I could see she was a hawksbill. This is significant as hawksbill have rarely been seen this season by anyone. Dan who has been here 2 weeks longer and Maisy who has been here since March still hasn't seen one so I was looking forward to gloating. Anyway I knew I didn't get a good enough shot for a survey as couldn't get deep enough however as I came up the Boat men (Will put in his name as I am still learning them) was in the water with his flippers on. He asked if he could try so I set up my go pro and let him go get a better video. And he most certainly did more about that to follow. We headed back to the boat and were going to visit shark point, however as we approached the waves were very choppy, so the boatman and I looked at each other and decided to go somewhere else. We headed across to an opposite part of the island where there was a fresh water river that runs into the sea. He brought us up to the river and he had a jug which he filled with this freshwater before throwing it over us. It was cold but so refreshing from the salty sea we had been snorkeling in. We stayed for a while enjoying chilling in this bay before heading home. On the way back the boatman started having a lot of fun by going very fast and deliberately crashing into the current making huge splashes. When we got back to the Jetty on our island I said goodbye to the boatman. We headed home and I sprayed off all the equipment before rushing to get my tablet to check out the footage from the hawksbill. It is amazing so clear and of both sides of the face so we are able to use it in our survey. There is possibilities it is a new turtle but this needs to be checked against our data base tomorrow. We had dinner and after dinner I had a little check of our mystery turtle against a turtle spotted in the same area back in May. Me and Dan both sat there unsure if it was the same or different as the markings were so similar. We seeked the assistance of Ramona and after several back and forth checks we all concluded we don't think it's the turtle from May so fingers crossed it's a new one. After that we put a film on for everyone to watch before bed. I'm looking forward to checking the mystery turtle tomorrow.

No comments:

Post a Comment