Been here a month already and starting to get a little bit of Island Fever. This week we went up to 10 volunteers when we are only meant to have a max of 8. This meant on Monday four went off to Tiga Ruang with Dan, while the other five stayed in the village. Our five new volunteers consisted of an 18 year old couple from California, Tanya and Spencer. They were on a trip around south east Asia, the girl was Vietnamese American and they were planning on visiting family after this. They had been at our jungle project in Merapoh. The next volunteer to arrive was Ella, she was 20 from Durham and at Durham University studying English. Durham University are one of the organisations that help fund this project with a support fund called Ducks, forgotten what it stands for Durham university something, something. We also gained a volunteer who had done 3 weeks with our dive project who was doing a week with us. She was called Marie and she was a French Canadian. Our last volunteer had been here last year and was a friend of Ramona's. She was German didn't get how old she was but had a horrendous 28 hour journey so she was very tired on arrival. Before going to Tiga Ruang on Thursday I went on 3 Snorkel Surveys in a row with different sets of people, safe to say my Kayaking has got pretty good. The new camera is really good if not a little bulky and on one of the surveys I saw 8 turtles in the space of an hour. On Wednesday we had another Malay dinner this time at a new house I hadn't been to before we brought 5 volunteers along with me and Melissa. Had some spicy chicken, squid as well as rice and vegetables. The surprise at the end of this Malay dinner was when our host brought out this Banana Cake. It wasn't normal Banana bread as it wasn't baked, it was steamed. I had doubts at first but it was so good, by steaming it made it very moist and moreish. We asked how she made it, so might attempt to make our own at some point.
As I said earlier Thursday I was off to Tiga Ruang, I was going with Wid as it was time for Nicks Visa Run. He was headed to Langkawi and then Thailand for a week. We went to Tiga Ruang with 5 volunteers, Marie, Annie, Ella, Tanya and Spencer. First night of patrol no turtles lay but did spot one false crawl. We had some hatchlings we released instead, 72 in total. During the day we did a beach clean around site and collected four bags of rubbish, there are more and more tourists turning up to the beach during the day. Second night four turtles laid and one false crawl. We missed one of the turtles laying as I didn't wake up for my 6:30am patrol and it was only because one of our volunteers at 7:00am spotted it that we found it. She was already camouflaging her nest when we got to her and marked it before she went into the sea, we managed to get facial photos but no measurements unfortunately.
During the day on Saturday we had a lot of tourists snorkeling and hanging out around our end of the beach. I had to tell several they couldn't use our toilet as it's private despite the sign on the door . This is due to our limited water supply. Later on I found that a tourist had snuck in and managed to break the flush on our toilet that I had to fix later on using a bit of string/rope. One girl I spoke to just wanted to hear about the project and more information on turtles and conservation. She was from Canada but had been travelling for 2 years, she had done a year in Australia before touring South East Asia, she couldn't volunteer at our project as she didn't have enough time to commit for a week. Later on I went out on the paddle board again and tied myself to the buoy line and just sunbathed and floated for a while. On the last night it rained 9:30pm til midnight so we were unable to do our patrols as we can't take the eggs when its raining heavy. While we waited for the rain to pass we played cards in the staff house I taught some of the volunteers how to play a couple of games, Trumps and Hearts of 8. At 11:30pm the rain died down a bit. The volunteers and I decided to attempt to patrol, I took one step out of our porch and saw a turtle by our bench. We backed off and waited for her to settle, at this time the fisheries staff had just arrived. I waited to see if she would lay her eggs as she was in an awkward spot near the fallen tree and she did. I told the fisheries staff who are more experienced than me and they dug the eggs out keeping them dry. They also did the one from the night before, the one form the night before laid 100 eggs and the female from tonight laid 83.
As I said earlier Thursday I was off to Tiga Ruang, I was going with Wid as it was time for Nicks Visa Run. He was headed to Langkawi and then Thailand for a week. We went to Tiga Ruang with 5 volunteers, Marie, Annie, Ella, Tanya and Spencer. First night of patrol no turtles lay but did spot one false crawl. We had some hatchlings we released instead, 72 in total. During the day we did a beach clean around site and collected four bags of rubbish, there are more and more tourists turning up to the beach during the day. Second night four turtles laid and one false crawl. We missed one of the turtles laying as I didn't wake up for my 6:30am patrol and it was only because one of our volunteers at 7:00am spotted it that we found it. She was already camouflaging her nest when we got to her and marked it before she went into the sea, we managed to get facial photos but no measurements unfortunately.
During the day on Saturday we had a lot of tourists snorkeling and hanging out around our end of the beach. I had to tell several they couldn't use our toilet as it's private despite the sign on the door . This is due to our limited water supply. Later on I found that a tourist had snuck in and managed to break the flush on our toilet that I had to fix later on using a bit of string/rope. One girl I spoke to just wanted to hear about the project and more information on turtles and conservation. She was from Canada but had been travelling for 2 years, she had done a year in Australia before touring South East Asia, she couldn't volunteer at our project as she didn't have enough time to commit for a week. Later on I went out on the paddle board again and tied myself to the buoy line and just sunbathed and floated for a while. On the last night it rained 9:30pm til midnight so we were unable to do our patrols as we can't take the eggs when its raining heavy. While we waited for the rain to pass we played cards in the staff house I taught some of the volunteers how to play a couple of games, Trumps and Hearts of 8. At 11:30pm the rain died down a bit. The volunteers and I decided to attempt to patrol, I took one step out of our porch and saw a turtle by our bench. We backed off and waited for her to settle, at this time the fisheries staff had just arrived. I waited to see if she would lay her eggs as she was in an awkward spot near the fallen tree and she did. I told the fisheries staff who are more experienced than me and they dug the eggs out keeping them dry. They also did the one from the night before, the one form the night before laid 100 eggs and the female from tonight laid 83.
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