Wednesday Wid (my boss), Maisy and Ramona returned from their trip to the mainland. I forgot to say they were on a necropsy and taxidermy course. They had taken one of the dead hawksbills from a few months ago with them. While there they found fishing wire in the stomach and looked at the biology of the turtles.
My Boss Wid
After that they got them ready to be taxidermy that would be ready in 30 days. This is for us to show our volunteers and tourists the size and other differences between a hawksbill and green turtles. We also had two new volunteers, Justine and Raphael from France, they were a couple who were doing masters in Biology. They had come from our other project on the mainland. Also Joelle came over, he was a previous intern from last year and was staying with us for a few days. He was really friendly and funny to have around. He took the new volunteers for water confidence while we had a staff meeting. He did the jetty jump while with us and ended up losing his dencher for his front tooth. In the staff meeting we discussed how everyone did when the school group were here. We reviewed the organisation and the plan for the next big group. Everyone got a bar of chocolate, I got Cadbury fruit and nut. I don't usually like fruit and nut but this was the first chocolate I had since being in Malaysia. I think in the UK by having a choice to say no I beame fussier, however being here I don't have a choice if I'm fussy I don't eat as much so I now eat most things out here. Also at the meeting we discussed about doing my open water dive course so hopefully start that soon. When we got back me and Dan attempted to fix the sofas in the living room. They weren't completely broken but the supports were breaking. Dan sawed some wood and I nailed it in to add more support. We also opened one of the pillows and found the springs had broken, photo below.
Thursday morning I went on survey with Rachel to Pitani it was quite choppy and visibility was quite poor so we saw no turtles. In the afternoon we go the boat to Tiga Ruang, when we got there I cooked dinner. I made a bolognese without the meat with pasta. I was on the early shift the first night, late the following two other nights. While there only 1 turtle laid and we had a few false crawls. We did get to release 57 hatchlings, most headed for the sea straight away, a few went in circles or backwards. It was really cool seeing them venture off into the sea. However the sight of seeing them head to the sea was darkened with the reality of nature during my patrol an hour later. I saw something run across the front of me, I shined my torch and it was a crab with a hatchling in its claw dying.
The fisheries guys while we were there came from some other beaches with eggs from other nests. While at Tiga Ruang I got my final second year results and passed with an average mark in the 2:1 bracket which I was happy about. One of the mornings nick came up to me with a squirrel caught in a cage he usually uses to catch rats. He jokingly asked me if I wanted it for dinner or if he should release it. I said eat it of course. Just kidding he released it and I asked him what he uses to catch the rats, he told me he had stale chocolate cereal but he'd run out. Earlier that morning the volunteer Rachel told me she had some chocolate cereal which tasted funny but she really wanted chocolate cereal so ate it still so when I worked out it was the same cereal as the rat bait I burst into laughter. I told nick and when Rachel returned from her swim we told her she didn't seem to bothered but me and Nick found it hilarious. Tiga Ruang is beautiful.
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