Day 26-27- Tree Falls Tiga Ruang

Saturday was my day off and originally my plan was to go on an adventure, however the morning was so hot I decided against it. Instead I caught up on some sorting out around the house as well as planning some dissertation ideas. After lunch I read a research paper my boss gave me on turtle carcass strandings. It was an interesting read discussing how currents and wind effect where a dead turtle may originate from based on seasonal patterns. It also talked about how it is hard for researchers to know the exact mortality rate, as sunk carcasses by the time they arrive on land can be very decomposed and take longer to strand. Later on community project asked if we'd like to join them for some volleyball. I hadn't played volleyball in 4-5 years but was keen. We went down to the sandy playing pitch and set up the net. We played 4 v 4 with two people holding the net alternating when a point was scored. Community had a new intern arrive this week Lennie who was a 6ft 3, 18 year old German. It turned out he plays volleyball for Germany and his serve was insane. After a few games we got kicked off the pitch for the locals to play football so we moved to the hard surface pitch by the jetty. This was interesting as we couldn't dive like we were in the sand. We played several games with different teams from each of the projects and we started getting a bit of an audience. The locals were sitting round watching us play, some got involved calling referee decisions. Then some of the younger locals asked to give us a game. As my team was winning the most we played the locals first. The locals were good, I quite often see them playing foot volleyball and that's impressive. Anyway, it was a close game but we just about managed to win. We played a bit more and then we saw Nick, Maisy (interns) and Annie (our volunteer) who had been at Tiga Ruang at the jetty. Turned out that a giant tree had fallen right next to the staff house at camp. The tree had destroyed our bench, two chairs Nick made as well as some of the roof. Apparently 5 minutes before the tree fell, Maisy was sitting on the beach. Back at the house we had some dinner, Maisy showed us her laptop that was hit by the tree that somehow survived. It still works despite the damages to the hinge and case which was a relief as it had a lot of our turtle data on. Nick explained how the tree had broken the water pipe and electricity to camp. The cruelty of nature. Everyone stayed in the village that night and we planned to take as many people over tomorrow to assess and clear the damage.

The next day turned out the fisheries guys had managed to fix the water and electricity and also cleared some branches off the tree. Wid told Dan and I that we were staying overnight if we can get it livable again. We brought over saws, axes and Nick's Machete. When we got there and saw the tree it was shocking. This was a large tree that has snapped from the base of the stump. We started clearing branches off the trunk. Wid got a really cool time lapse video of us working away. When we cleared enough that we cleared enough that we could navigate around camp again we had lunch and discussed the plan of action. Seeing as it was livable Dan and I would be staying for night patrol while the others would be going back to the village. When they left we had a sunbathe and I took the paddle board out, the sea was so calm and was really relaxing. I came back and sunbathed some more before making dinner before patrol. Again I had no turtles on my patrol, but Dan had one that laid exactly 100 eggs. I was sleeping in a hammock under the shelter by the staff house. At around 5:30 I was woken up by this huge downpour of rain. I immediately sprinted into the staff house with Dan. The rain went on for over an hour and was very noisy it kept me up. The boat in the morning was picking us up at 9:30am so I attempted to go back to sleep when the rain stopped.