Day 65-67- 5 in 2 weeks

Today was a house day, it is getting closer to the end of the season and sorting out the data and stuff on the computer is needed to be done. Dan was on survey with our volunteers so it was just me and Ramona in the house. Ramona has finally finished her Dive Master course with Sea Voice Divers at Coral Bay. She needed to finish this as she plans to join the Dive Project next year. Yesterday was also Ramona's 100th dive, as a tradition this meant she had to dive naked and I mean completely naked other than diving gear. She went to Redang with the other guy she that was doing her Dive Master and a group of tourists, apparently a lot of them thought she was just wearing a bikini due to her white tan lines where her bikini normally is. After Lunch we analysed the data Dan got from survey. While we were doing this we got a message from Wid there was another dead turtle this time at PIR. She sent over some photos and it didn't look good the turtle had been put in a bin bag and dumped at the jetty at PIR. As I dealt with the last stinky turtle it was Dan's turn, he met Joju and headed to PIR. When he got there he found that it was only half a turtle and probably a juvenile as it was quite small. The face was unidentifiable and it was smashed up most likely by a boat but it was so broken it was impossible to tell. Dan took it out to sea and released it hoping it would strand somewhere away from developed areas. 

Later on a guy turned up to the house to see Ramona, turned out this guy was Jay he had interned at the turtle project last year and was back at the Perhentians being a free lance dive master. We got chatting and it turned out he was from Plymouth University as well, he studies marine biology and was going into third year in September. He seemed really nice and think Dan and I will plan  a night out with him when we're all back. When Jay left we cleaned under the house it was well overdue as there was a lot of rubbish there and the neighbours kids often play under our house and make a mess. Once this was done we got another message from Wid about another dead turtle this was five dead turtles in two weeks. This time I went to go but this was about 6:30pm and was getting dark, I tried to call Joju and then Jarr but neither would take me. Everyone was getting tense as looking at the photos that were sent it looked like a turtle from our database P11, she had damaged back flippers and Maisy saw her last week looking like she was struggling to breathe, eat and swim. As no one would take me I went back to the house, I checked the photos Wid sent with the photos Maisy took of P11 earlier in the week and from the back flippers we were pretty certain it was P11. This was sad as their were talks of rescuing her and rehabilitating her when she was better. Dan was off at Malay dinner with the volunteers and Ramona had already eaten so I went to cook dinner. I made myself a proper western dinner of pasta, vegetables, chicken hot dogs (as their is no pork here) in a cheese sauce. I completely misjudged how much pasta to cook and made three portions worth, which I shamefully say that I ate all of them. 

The next day was my off day, this was one of the first mornings I've slept in a bit. When I got up I sorted out my washing as I was off to Tiga Ruang with Dan Sunday. My plan for the evening was to go to the big island for an explore, sunbathe and snorkel. I found out Lenny from Community Project was taking his volunteer and two of the Dive Project's volunteers to Teluk Keke (Fish Point) so I said I would meet them. I got the boat over to Tuna Bay and then walked to Teluk Keke, I forgot how far round Teluk Keke was from Tuna Bay. 

When I got there I sunbathed for a bit before Lenny turned up, we then all went for a snorkel and found some rocks to climb. On the way back we found a rope in the water to swim under which was good fun. I dried off and then got a message from Dan that he was heading to the Barat with the Volunteers for a milkshake. I left Lenny and went to join Dan at the Barat this was quite a walk as the Barat is past Tuna Bay. I tried to find the path that connects Tuna Bay with the Barat but couldn't fine it so I did a bit of coasting around the island. When I got there we all ordered an Oreo Milkshake they are so good!!

We were so chilled and we brought a pack of cards, it was already 6pm and talked about staying for dinner. Everyone was happy so we messaged Ramona and went to get a bigger table. We played a few games of cards, I taught everyone Rat a Tat Tat my new favourite card game. We later ordered, I had the lasagna I really miss my mums lasagna. While we were eating we saw there was a huge tour group of Chinese Malaysians they had clearly ordered some kind of buffet from the Barat but it seemed none of them knew how to queue. There was like four different lines for the same spot and they all were throwing hands in to try and grab a plate it was hilarious to watch. 

After dinner we got a boat back to the village and got and early night as I was going on survey with Dan in the morning. 

Sunday morning we left slightly later for survey, Kayaking today seemed so much harder than normal. When we got their we began survey, however it was quite unsucessful. Despite surveying the whole width of PIR and even going into deeper water we only saw two turtles. Joelle who is always in the shallows and a juvenile in the deeper water that Dan spent ages trying to photograph. When we saw Joelle there was easily 100 people around her it was horrible to see. It was coming up to 12 so we headed back, coming back was a lot easier. Ramona told me in the morning she had managed to sort me and a volunteer to do our open water diving tomorrow. This was really exciting as I didn't think I was going to be able to do it as time was getting on but Ramona had sorted it. Apparently they moved some people around just to fit us in which was really nice. This meant that for the next three days I would be going to Coral Bay and diving with Sea Voice and on Wednesday I should have my PADI Open Water Qualification. We went and got a big lunch before getting ready for Tiga Ruang, I had invited the community interns Lenny, Yumi and Sian however Sian couldn't make it. They had been wanting to go Tiga Ruang for ages so was glad they could experience it. We met Joju and left at 5pm. Nick was going to leave when we got there but decided to stay. When we got there I cooked dinner for everyone, Dan helped by cooking some sausages on an open fire. As I had to be at Coral Bay early Monday I did the early shift with Lenny and Yumi. Our first few patrols their were no signs of turtles, Maisy the three nights before had no turtles so really hope we might get to see one as the Community guys were only here for a night. At 10 Fisheries turned up and collected some hatchlings for us to release which was cool. We then patrolled at 11 and found a false crawl, looking at the tracks the turtle literally came hit a rock and turned round. On our patrol at 1am, Lenny was cooking so just me and Yumi patrolled. We went all the way to the end and saw no sign of turtles. On the way back we were talking and we were walking around the fisheries boat which was moored on the sound and I spotted turtle tracks. I was really confused how we didn't spot it on the first walk up the beach. Anyway we followed the tracks and they seemed to stop so thought maybe they were old tracks, I shined my torch and spotted this turtle hidden under a tree. I went behind her to see what stage she was at, luckily she hadn't laid yet but was far into digging her egg chamber. I went to the camp quickly and grabbed Lenny and a bucket for the eggs. When I got back to the turtle she was very close to laying, I set up behind her and there was a nice amount of room to get the eggs. The guys helped me count the eggs, take measurements and record times. She was a big girl around 95cm in length and laid 103 eggs this was a lot as the average last month was in the 80s and month before 90s so we expected much lower.

 After she laid she began closing the nest and camouflaging this was now about 2:30am. We waited til she submerged into the sea at 3:00am, then I let Dan take over the rest of the night while I tried to get some sleep as we were getting picked up at 8am. 

 

Day 61-64- Tiga Ruang the Reopening

The first night of Tiga Ruang was slightly disappointing as there were no turtle sightings not even a false crawl. I did the early shift with the volunteers however Maria wasn't feeling very well. I don't know what is about Tiga Ruang but someone always feels ill or has a problem. It was nice to be back at Tiga Ruang as during the day it is so relaxing, a mixture of chilling in the hammocks, sunbathing and watching things on my tablet. I forgot to mention something that was really annoying when we came back to Tiga Ruang, finding that someone had stolen one of our hammocks that was attached to our palm trees at the front of camp. I have recently got into "It's always sunny in Philadelphia" a TV show my best friend Jessie has been trying to get me into the last two years. I have not missed tourists asking me if they can put their rubbish in our bin and if we sell water. The next night we still had no turtles come up and nest but this time there was a false crawl. On the last night we had 3 turtles come up to the beach, the first one came up at 8pm at the start of Tiga Ruang Tengar. It was the first patrol we did and had only just got dark, I went to see what it was doing and it had already started body pitting. I went back to get all the equipment as I didn't expect there to be a turtle this early. She was happy in her first body and made her egg chamber. Just as she was about to lay when it started to rain, this meant we couldn't take the eggs. We still recorded carapace measurements and facial photos, Nick recognised this turtle as one that had come earlier on in the season which he had named after his Grandmother. The next turtle we spotted came just after 9 at the end of Tiga Ruang Tengar, it had got up and over some steep sand but then gone and fallen into a dried up river bed. I watched her as she got herself stuck under a bamboo stick. I removed the bamboo stick and she started to body pit. She body pitted then started her egg chamber but then moved on. Much of the sand she was in was dirty and not suitable for nesting. Eventually this female started headbutting a rock and heading towards somewhere she would get stuck so Nick grabbed her and pointed her back towards the sea. We helped encourage her to go back to the sea so hopefully she'll come back later or another day. The last turtle turned up  on Tiga Ruang Besar about 11pm this turtle body pitted 3 times, and egg chambered twice before settling to lay her eggs. I collected her eggs and Maria helped me by counting the eggs. She laid 73 eggs, after this we took carapace measurements and facial ID. there were no more turtles after that and I got a good night sleep.
In the morning our boat was at 10am, we got back to the village and went for lunch. I went for the buffet and got a huge plate of rice vegetables and beef for 13RM. The beef at the buffet is definitley my favourite thing to get for lunch. After lunch I took the volunteers out for Snorkel Tour. Our boatman was Mat Lias he is great always nice to talk to and he always tells me about interesting things he sees. He told me him and his mate had seen dolphins coming back from Rawa. We started our tour at Shark point but we didn't see much as it was quite choppy. I did get to see a box fish but he swam away before I could get a photo. Our next stop was Fish point there was lots of nice coral and I saw a huge group of needle fish. The final stop on our journey was Turtle Beach/Tiga Ruang Meningis. It was nice and quiet and I saw lots of fish and a couple of baby sharks. The highlight was watching the Clown Fish coming out of the anemones when I was diving down to get a closer look.

In the evening it was me and Hazel cooking we cooked Bee Hoon noodles with vegetables in soy sauce. I am going to try to get some in the UK as they are really nice especially with  mushrooms and soy sauce. 

Day 60- We hate Mondays

Monday was weird with everyone gone as Hazel was the only volunteer left in the house. We were expecting 6 new volunteers today though. One of them was an American girl called Madisen meant to be coming at 8am from another Ecoteer project in Merapoh. The other 5 were all University friends from Portugal and the thought was they are all travelling together on the same boat at around 12. However, Madisen never showed up on the early boat and 2 of the Portuguese a couple Madia and Alexandre arrived on a 9-10 o'clock boat. I was out on survey while this was going on with Hazel. It again was very very hot today and kayaking was tough in the heat. When we got there it was really clear so I suggested we survey in deeper waters as we rarely get out to deep. Hazel spotted a juvenile but hazel couldn't dive so I went in the water. I forgot to patch my finger up, the one that got crushed under a boat as at the moment the nail is coming off, so when I got in the water it ripped back and hurt a lot. I could dive down still while holding the nail but couldn't dive down quick enough to take a photo so the first turtle got away. This happened again with 2 more turtles all juveniles that I couldn't dive down quick enough so I missed them. One of the juveniles I believe to be a new one but with no facial ID I won't know unless I find it again. We went a bit shallower as the deeper water wasn't working for me and found Long Dragon surrounded by lots of tourists, I managed to get a photo of him before he too swam away. This was not a good survey this morning. 

We kayaked back to the village and when we got back to the house the other 3 Portuguese volunteers were still not arrived. Maisy went down to the Jetty at around 12 to wait for them. At 1 I took Hazel and the Portuguese couple down to be jetty for lunch, while there Maisy messaged me saying she was still waiting. I brought Maisy lunch and went to meet her, she decided to follow me back to the house and see if there were any messages about their arrival. We got a message saying they would be in the 3pm boat. Nick me hazel and the Portuguese couple were off to Tiga Ruang tonight so I started packing. While doing that the last 3 Portuguese showed up and it was only just gone 2. Monday's are such a mess sometimes. It also turned out Madisen the American girl left Merapoh after 2 days and was never coming to the turtle project but no one told us. At 4-5 Ainn arrived from the mainland with all our good shopping, I was excited as I asked Wid to get me a bar of diary milk chocolate which we can't get on the islands. We unpacked the shopping Wid had gone a bit crazy with the amount I jam an milk she brought but it was nice to have full cupboards as before that we had pasta, cabbage, cucumber and ginger. We gathered what we needed for Tiga Ruang and headed down to the jetty for about 7.

Day 59- Farewell Friends

Sunday morning was time to say goodbye to Tammam, Nadia, Cassandra and Chloe. They were all getting the 12pm boat to Kuala Besut. We got everyone to complete our survey about their time at the project . When everyone was ready we headed down to the Jetty. Community project and Dive Project also had people leaving. I'm definitely gonna miss these volunteers as they had been the most fun out all of the volunteers since I've been here. Despite how annoying Tammam had been the last couple of weeks him and his sister Nadia had been great company and volunteers. Gonna be quieter without them around. When the boat arrived we said our goodbyes and Cassandra almost got emotional bless her. We waved them goodbye and waited for their boat to be out of sight. I hope this isn't the last time I see them but we'll see. 

By this point Nick was getting hungry so we went for food. It was such a hot day and meant to be my day off, instead I spent it inside with Maisy and Nick. Our last volunteer Hazel decided to go for a walk around the island. While at the house I wrote my blog and started having a look at other projects to possibly intern at next year. In the evening when Hazel returned we went down to Blue Temple (Dive projects house) to watch GOT so far I've managed to stay up to date somehow. The first two and 5 has been down to streaming it, 3 and 4 I got off Tammam and tonight we were watching episode 6 as someone had downloaded it. It was getting excited as there was only 7 episodes in this season. Lenny went and brought me and Ice cream and the episode did not disappoint. Everyone is excited for the season finale.

Day 58- Best Volunteer So Far

Ramona hadn't scheduled Nick a survey all week as she didn't think he could fit in the Kayak. As you can imagine he was a little offended by this. As I had done 5 in 6 days I was happy to swap with him this morning. This meant for me it was Beach Clean time and this time time we went to Tiga Ruang Meningis. This is a small beach round the coast from Tiga Ruang Besar and Tengar. It may be small but it is very busy with tourists and gets a lot of rubbish dumped or washed up. I went with all the volunteers, Hazel, Tammam, Nadia, Chloe and Cassandra. Today we used the Clean Swell app, this was created  to monitor beach clean ups, we used it to record different types of litter we collected.

We were cleaning for about an hour and we then starting using the app. While counting through the bags Hazel found some Duplo kids toys. The main litter collected was Nappys, Plastic Water Bottles and Polystyrene. I found a shovel probably used by poachers to dig up eggs. We collected 9 bags of rubbish. While we were there more and more tourists turned up in boats there were 16 boats with tourists on in this tiny bay. There is some nice coral and snorkeling but there were so many people it didn't look like much fun. One of the French volunteers Chloe decided to vocalise her thoughts on all these tourists. She ran off shouting at some that were standing on corals, even tourists with life jackets were standing on coral so I let her continue. I've really enjoyed hanging out with these guys they've been great fun and I will miss them when they leave Sunday. 

When we got back we went for lunch then finished off the awareness board and did data analysis from Nicks and Maisys survey in the morning. These guys had been working really hard and had got very creative improving our Awareness board. Now it was nearly finished and was time to staple the information and the drawings onto it. The finished piece looked amazing and I can't wait to go out and use it. 

The guys had been saying they wanted to play volleyball all week but the best time to play 6pm is taken by the local boat boys. We decided to go down at 7 but it started to get dark. We played for a bit and was a laugh as it wasn't always easy to see and as there was only 6 of us we couldn't play properly. After this we headed to the house and the guys wanted to go Pitani for their last night and have dinner there. As i had enjoyed spending time with them so much I decided to join. We left about 9 and got there just in time to order as they stop serving at 9:30. I ordered the Thai Green Curry and a bucket of 5 330ml Tiger beer cans for 83RM in total. A lot more expensive than the village but dont spend to much daily so wasn't to bothered. It was nice to have a beer as we don't go for drinks often. The girls ordered coconut water which came out in a coconut with some tequila that they mixed inside. The food came out and as I expected it looked and smelt amazing. It had lots of chicken in it, with different vegetables as well. Tammam ordered the sea bass which also looked amazing, he let me try a bit and it was so good. I spotted he had broccoli on his plate which shocked me as I hadn't seen broccoli on the island before. It turned out he didn't like it so he gave it to me. I love broccoli. Nick came to join us and managed to order some food. After dinner the girls ordered a Margarita but the kind manager Dr.something let them have one each as we explained it was their last night. We played a few games of cards while we finished our drinks. The bill came and we split it and saved 15% as we were from Ecoteer, another perk of the internship. It was about 12 when we left and we went and laid on the beach for a bit. The sky was so clear and I saw 4 shooting stars. We headed back and I think the tequila and margarita had got to Cassandra as she was very giggly when we got back. Which made everyone else laugh, Chloe made us all some hot Milo and we sat on the veranda as it was about 1 am and Maisy and Ramona were already in bed. I had the day off the next day, so didn't mind chilling with these guys. The Milo tasted more like just hot water which made everyone laugh as no one could be bothered to get up and do anything about it. We finally went to bed at about 2am. Their boat wasn't til 12 luckily otherwise not sure they would have got up for 8am.

Day 55-57- Dua Penyu Mati

Wednesday morning Dan set off for his visa run, he was getting a taxi up to the Thai border and the original plan was to stay a night and come back to Malaysia Thursday. Instead he managed to go up there go round the shops for a few hours then pop back down to Kota Bharu where he was staying a couple of nights with his family before joining them for a few nights in Kuala Lumpar and finally then going back to Kota Bharu for a couple of nights to chill. My Wednesday morning consisted of going on a Beach Clean to Teluk Keke or Fish Point. I went with Tammam, Nadia and Hazel. Fish Point is a popular snorkel spot and also some dive shops use it for confined dives. A confined dive is the first dive you do when you start your open water as it is in controlled predictable conditions. We were collecting rubbish and one of the dive shops had already done a bit of a beach clean and collected a couple of bags. Its nice to see other people rather than just us looking after the beaches. In total we collected 12 bin bags between the four of us. In the afternoon I was originally meant to be going on snorkel tour with Nick and our volunteers however, Ainn and her community wanted to join so offered to sit out. I really enjoy snorkel tours but was due to do one the following week and I had stuff to do around the house. While I was sitting in the house on  my own doing work I got a message from Wid saying that Joju spotted a dead turtle at Shark Point. I tried getting hold of Joju but couldn't get through. I had then run out of credit so couldn't call or text anyone. Wid was messaging me over Whatsapp with possibilities to get a boat. I locked up the house and went down to the jetty. I at first tried to find Jarr as he owns a taxi service as well as being a member of the department of fisheries. However, I couldn't find him so my next option was to ask one of the boat boys who run the boat taxis. I told them there was a dead turtle at shark point but because I was on my own they wouldn't take me. While I was down the Jetty I bumped into Dan's family they were coming to visit the village and wanted to go to Pitani. They asked me what I was doing and I told them about the dead turtle situation, I needed to go back to the house to get internet again and they kindly offered to buy me a milkshake as they could see I was hot and sweaty from running all over the place. I showed them to the path that leads to Pitani and then headed to the house. When I got back I saw a message from Wid that Joju would pick me up at 5:00pm. I finished my washing and then headed back down to the Jetty at 5. As I headed down their the guys had just got back from snorkel tour, I grabbed Nick and told him what had happened as Nick had more experience in dead turtles than I did. We got in the boat with Joju and headed for shark point. It had been a good 2-3 hours since the turtle had been spotted so it was a bit of a mission to try and find it. We went close into the rocks as we had assumed it got washed up or stranded on some rocks. Both me and Nick were looking and couldn't see it, then all of a sudden Joju points and moves the boat round. He had spotted it wedged between two big rocks. We climbed onto the big rocks to get a closer look and when we got there the turtle was to put it kindly a mess. I could see it was a male which sucked as their aren't that many males in our population around the Perhentians. The turtle was quite clearly hit by a boat propeller it looked like it had hit the face as well as the carapace. It was way to decomposed to ID or do a necropsy on so we had to leave it, the smell was so bad I can't even describe it.

We got back and showered before Malay dinner at 8pm. We were all going to Kah Dar's house my favourite place for Malay dinner. We got there and all sat round, at Malay dinner you have to wear a sarong, eat sitting on the floor and eat with your right hand. Kah Dar had made a chicken curry, vegetables, two different types of fried fish and spicy omelette. It was all delicious and I ate 2 of the fish and around 7 bits of chicken. After dinner I stayed for a bit when everyone else left to watch a Kuala Lumpar games football match, it was Malaysia vs Singapore and Kah Dar's husband was really into it. It was quite a good game and Kah Dar didn't mind me staying, I left at half time and it was still 0-0. When I checked later on I saw it was 3-1 Malaysia, kinda wish I stayed as their was very late drama.

Thursday I went on survey with Hazel, Tammam and Nadia in the morning. We set off at first boys in one kayak and girls in the other. However, as we set off I realised if I wanted to be back in time for lunch and still survey for a decent time I'd have to swap someone. I took Nadia in my kayak and Tammam went in with Hazel. This made us a little quicker getting over there. We had a good survey seeing 5 turtles, we saw Luis who is one of our males we don't often see. When I checked the photos back at the house I noticed that I had accidently slipped the camera onto art setting which made a weird but cool effect on the photo. Luckily you could still see the facial markings. 

I took the guys out for lunch and rather than just go to the food court/jetty we took a trip to one of the cafes by the mosque. We sat down and ordered and I spotted this specials menu selling chicken pizza for 13RM so of course I got that. It wasn't the biggest but that didn't matter as there was so much proper cheese on it that made it so tasty. Tammam ordered the Fried Sausage expecting it to be burger instead it was just a plate full of sausages with some fries. I also got a strawberry float which was so good.

In the afternoon the guys were set the task of redesigning one side of our awareness board. The old board had a tragic picture of a turtle on and wasn't very eye catching. The first task for the guys was to paint over the old turtle, they went for a blue and added some yellow on the bottom for sand. Once the paint was dry the next step was drawing on the new turtle. We used the project logo and projected it on and Tammam and Hazel drew round it. The next step was painting the turtle we went for a dark green and made the pattern in the middle yellow. While some were painting the others were drawing some marine life to add to the board. The guys painted some coral and sea grass on the sand and Tammam added sand on the yellow to texture the sea bed. We ran out of time to finish it so the plan was to finish it friday. 

Friday morning the guys finished touching up the painting on the awareness board and Nadia had done some awesome drawings of a clownfish and pufferfish which I helped scan and print to put onto the board. While the guys were working I got a call from Wid telling me about another Dead turtle sighting on the way to long beach. I went and met Joju on the jetty and headed to long beach. When we got round the coast we saw the turtle floating on the water. We got closer and I noticed that it hadn't been dead that long as there wasn't much decomposing occurred. I could see that cause of death was likely another boat strike as there was a large crack in the back of its carapace. I took some photos and saw that it was a young female, as it was still fairly fresh me and Joju pulled it out of the water and onto the boat to bring it back to the village for a necropsy. This was really sad as this was the 3rd dead turtle in a week, there had been a male found Saturday that Ramona saw. 

When I got to the village Maisy had just come back from survey and Nick had just got back to the house as he had been out for a walk in the morning. We moved the turtle to the end of the village beach away from tourists and locals and Nick brought down the necropsy kit. The turtle had already started to smell a bit. The necropsy was to work out cause of death but also to assess the health of the turtle before dying. Nick and Maisy started by cutting underneath the belly to get to her internal organs. After a while Nick asked me to carry on and showed me how to cut and not to cut to deep as I didn't want to puncture anything inside and release a bad smell. Nick went and dug a pit to put the turtle in when we were done. I had almost done my whole side and Nick was finishing off the hard spot by the neck. Nick was cutting away the tissue from the belly and I started doing the same then I felt something nip me, my finger started bleeding rapidly. Turned out nick had acidently clipped me with the blade. I really don't have much luck with my fingers. I went back to the house to get it cleaned up and disinfected it was only a small cut. When I got back down there most of the necropsy was done the heart was removed along with the liver. Maisy was checking the stomach and found this little turtle died with a nice full belly of sea grass. Nick checked the lungs and that was all fine so it was really sad that this was a very healthy turtle and if it wasn't hit by a boat would have been fine.
When we got back to the house we all showered and washed our clothes as everything stunk of dead turtle. As the turtle was discovered just after 12pm and we did the necropsy straight away no one had been for lunch and everyone was hungry. We went down for food and while we were eating this military jet zoomed through the channel between the islands really low must have only been max 200m from the sea. They did this a few times circling round the island it was awesome, turns out their is a Malaysian air craft carrier off the coast of eastern Malaysia somewhere. Back at the house the guys then carried on with the awareness board. Chloe and Cassandra had made a really cool clam to put on the board as well as some extra notices and information to put on. It wasn't quite finished but we would finish it tomorrow.

Day 53-54- Turtle Surveys and see you soon Dan

It was Monday again which meant new volunteer arriving, this time it was just  1 volunteer Hazel who was from the UK. She was a 25 year old science teacher from Brighton, when she arrived I helped her get her bags off the boat. Anyone would think she was here for 6 months her bag was huge and quite heavy. I went through welcome orientation and showed her round the village. As she had been travelling she was quite tired. Nick was back in the village as we had decided to close Tiga Ruang for a week. This was due to us as staff feeling the fisheries were getting complacent of us being there. We had told them about poachers and they carried on sleeping. They were still putting the eggs in the hatchery and monitoring nests for hatchlings but after losing our data loggers and not explaining how they got lost we felt it best to leave for a bit. They also weren't patrolling other beaches as often and spending a lot of time at our camp. It is a shame as I know a lot of our volunteers love it at Tiga Ruang and most of the volunteers said it was the best part. So in the morning the others went on survey and Nick was doing data analysis with Nadia. In the afternoon I went on survey with Nadia as Ramona didn't think Nick could go in the Kayak. There had been an incident earlier on in the season with Nick and the Kayak so I was down for surveys all week. It was a successful survey we saw 5 turtles, one of them was P244F a new turtle for this year discovered in April only seen 5 times all season.

Tuesday I was similar to Monday I went on Survey this time with Hazel, Chloe and Cassandra. I hadn't spent much time with Chloe and Cassandra last week so was looking forward to getting to  know them. We only saw 3 turtles on our survey, the highlight of the survey was when we found Hope in the shallow waters. She is easily identifiable as she has a shark bite in her right flipper. 

Anyway, Hope was very crowded by tourists so I went to take photos of her. As there was a lot of tourists I asked Chloe to hold the Kayak. I got the photos of both sides of the face as well as the shot above of the flipper and when I surfaced I heard Chloe shouting "Give her space she needs to breathe, you are like flies!". She was very angry screaming to stop tourists getting to close to the turtle, which is completely understandable as tourists do not respect the turtles space especially when they are surfacing. However, when I saw Chloe there was no Kayak near her, she had let it go and the Kayak had got taken almost to shore so I had to swim to it before it got any further into the shore. We got back and had lunch and did data analysis. In the evening me Chloe and Hazel were meant to be cooking however we didn't have much in the cupboards or fridge. We had some pasta, a few veggies and sauce so decided to attempt to make something with that. We were going to go shopping at 6:30pm so we had food the rest of the week but as we were about to go it started storming badly. It hadn't been that long since Dan and the others came back from survey and Dan was still in his swim shorts waiting for the shower. He offered to go down in the rain as he needed a shower anyway. As it was my responsibility to do dinner and get shopping I couldn't let him suffer on his own so I put my swim shorts on and joined him. The rain was relentless and we got soaked instantly, we saw this as an opportunity to have some poses in the rain.  

We got the shopping and then I went back and cooked, I enjoy cooking but I'm not used to cooking for so many people as I much prefer cooking for myself. Its been a good experience though and everyone has liked everything I've cooked so far. Dan goes on Visa Run tomorrow,  going to be weird when he goes. 

Day 52- Farewell Darshini, Thank you Dan's Family

Sunday we got back from Tiga Ruang and Darshini got ready to leave. Her boat was at twelve so we went for an early lunch, she had been such a laugh the last week. She was 28 but acted and looked 18 and had been working at a theme park in Kaula Lumpar, in the marketing department but she had recently handed in her notice to work for a non profit charity. She had done several turtle projects around Malaysia in between work. The DUCK group were also leaving today, they all got on the boat and we predicted Darshini would be the last to stop waving goodbye. A quick selfie before she left and as predicted she waved until she was out of sight.

Later on that day there was a slight mix up with the schedule with me thinking I have the afternoon off so I went to long beach with Tammam and Nadia turned out I needed to go on survey with Dan to PIR. As soon as I was told I ran to get a boat and was back in 15 minutes. Dan's parents had been here all week and were going to join us on survey they were already at PIR and had rented kayaks. We got over there and started survey, we saw 11 turtle but only managed to photograph 9. One of the reasons I missed getting a photo of one of the turtles we saw was because some Italian man kept trying to grab the turtles flippers. I told him "Don't touch the turtle!" in which he replied "I touch it! I touch it!", which I then reply "NO don't touch it, you idiot!". He soon swam away, unfortunately so did the turtle, I knew which turtle this was without having to photo ID cause she has a large growth on her shell, she is Squirtle and has trouble diving. During our Survey I saw a cool ray, it was a Jenkins Whiptail Ray.

Hand signals showing how many people are around the turtle 

We had been surveying for 3 hours and then Dan's Dad asked me if I'd like to have dinner with them, I asked Dan if it was okay as I didn't want to intrude with seeing his parents and he said of course. After survey Dan, his brother, me and their family friend went to do a Jetty jump. Dan of course showed everyone up with a back-flip and a front-flip however I beat him at the most impressive Jetty Fall as I lost my footing trying to do a dive. After this me and Dan kayaked round to his parents accommodation before dumping the stuff and going for dinner. They were staying at a nice accommodation called the Barat. Dan, his brother and me went to find a table as it gets quite busy apparently. Dan told me to try the oreo milkshake as he had one before and said it was really good. He wasn't wrong it was delicious. The rest of his family joined and we chatted while we waited for our food. I ordered the beef burger as most the beef burgers in the village the meat doesn't seem right. This one however was amazing, it was a proper beef patty with lettuce not cabbage and proper cheese! After dinner we all had an Ice cream and we played cards. I taught Dan's family a game called Rat a tat tat which they all really enjoyed playing. Dans family friends were a Malay bloke David his wife and their two kids. David went off and brought back some Malay fruit for each of us, the first fruit was called Mangosteen and the other was called Rambutan they were both very weird but very delicious. As Dan was staying with his parents the plan was that I kayaked back to the village however, it was about 11pm by the time we had finished everything and Dans parents wouldn't let me paddle back on my own. Instead they had very kindly arranged for a boatman to take me and the kayak back to the village. Literally they had put the kayak into this boat that was almost the same size as the kayak with me perched next to it. 

Day 49-51- Bintang Pagi

Thursday evening at Tiga Ruang we got settled in it was me, Tammam, Nadia and Darshini.  I was doing the early shift with the volunteers as there were three of them and two of them were siblings we felt it was harsh to split them up. Before patrol we played cards and taught each other lots of different games. We went on patrol and the volunteers loved seeing all the stars, when there are no clouds it is so clear and you can see loads of constellations. These volunteers were really good fun to be around and I had definitely formed a really nice friendship with them. During the night we had some hatchlings to  release Due to complications we are no longer counting the number of hatchlings as this hasn't been done rest of the season. The nest loggers had also been lost which meant sex ratio could no longer be recorded which made it very frustrating for the team as we lost more data.

The next day was a standard Tiga Ruang day chilling round the beach, we had several tourists come up to us while at camp asking various questions. Lots wanted to get an opportunity to see hatchlings and one guy even came up asking to take his water bottle I told him to take it back to his resort as we have limited bin space and he replied with and I quote "Please take it as I don't want to litter this beautiful beach", some tourist really anger me. I managed to finish my book, the autobiography of Guy Martin "When you're dead you're dead". It was a really good read written very informally, talking about his career and work, an interesting inside look into behind the seasons of his TV series.

This was taken the week before

The next night I was set to do the late shift with the volunteers however from about 11 it started to storm and didn't stop til 4am. Nick had apparently gone out during the rain and found a turtle nesting and marked the nest. We are unable to take the eggs when it is raining as if they get wet they spoil. The girls were sleeping so me and Tammam got up and patrolled at 4:30, there were no turtles and as we were coming back we checked on the hatchery. I shined my head-torch and found that there were some hatchlings that had emerged. I looked to see how many and saw that red ants had got to a couple of nests as well. I went and got the key to the hatchery as fisheries staff weren't here as it had been stormy so they can't' get their boat in. I went inside with Tammam and collected as many hatchlings up as we could see. Some had unfortunately already died from monitor lizard or rats or crabs and some were badly bitten by ants. One little hatchling appeared nice and healthy but had lost a flipper. It is the sad part of the job seeing dead hatchlings but you have to think it is part of the natural life cycle. The turtles still have a better chance in the hatchery than they do if they were left open on Tiga Ruang as they would likely to be poached. 

After we collected the hatchlings I gave them to Nick to sort as some weren't ready to be released yet. It was about 5:45am by the time we were done with the hatchlings and I looked at my trousers and saw that I had about 7 or 8 red ants latched onto my legs. At 6:00am we patrolled the beach again and as we got past the rocks that divides Tiga Ruang Besar and Tengar I spotted turtle tracks. I followed the tracks and found a turtle body pitting. I left Tammam to keep an eye on the turtle while I went back to get the data sheets and a bucket for the eggs. Rarely do we get a turtle come up this late/early so this was very unusual. I got back to Tammam and she had moved onto a new body pit but this one appeared more promising. Nick came to see how we were doing and checked on the turtle. As she was digging the egg chamber he went to wake Nadia and Darshini up. As they got there she was about to start laying, Tammam was on egg counting responsibility. This female laid 107 eggs, this was quite a lot considering time of season. I took carapace measurements and Nick got the face photos. Nick took the eggs back to camp while I waited with the volunteers for her to finish closing her egg chamber and camouflage. She didn't submerge til 8:30am, we were slightly worried tourists were gonna turn up before she left the beach but luckily no one turned up. 

The next day we all got some well needed sleep, one of my favourite thing about Tiga Ruang is chilling in the hammocks. Later on we played cards again and went for a snorkel, during the snorkel I saw a jellyfish on the surface that was at least 50cm in diameter. We had been out quite a while and I said to the guys I was going to go back. As I put my head in the water to swim back there was this giant Titan Trigger Fish right in front of me that scared the crap out of me. Trigger fish aren't always aggressive mainly when they are nesting but they are still very intimidating. 

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The final night I was doing the early shift, in between patrols we all watched Pirates of the Carribean 2 on my tablet. While we were watching Jarr one of the Fishery staff was watching over our shoulders. Jarr is very funny and likes to play tricks. He kept making comments during the film for example when the Kraken appeared he was like Ooooo big octopus and he had brought petrol for the generator and kept offering it as orange juice. That night on patrol we had no turtles nest, we did however release lots of hatchlings from the night before and some from a nest that emerged that night.When we got back to the Village the next morning we found out that the turtle that had nested in the morning was a new turtle, this explained he high number of eggs laid. As she was a new one me and the volunteers got to name her, there were a few choices but we eventually all settled on Bintang Pagi which means Morning Star in Malay. 

Day 45-48- Duck Group

As I was returning from Tiga Ruang I had the morning off. We had new volunteers arrive today and Dan was meeting them. We were meant to have 6 volunteers but only 5 turned up. Two of them were girls from France, two were 16 year old twins brother and sister from Saudi Arabia and the last one was a Chinese Indian Malaysian girl Darshini who works in Kuala Kumpar. I slept for a bit and then went through emailing the volunteers who are arriving later this month. Maisy was off to Tiga Ruang with her sister, Anne, the two French girls and Roya who arrived last week from England. Ramona was staying in the house this week as we had university student group arriving Wednesday. It was Ramona's Birthday Monday, so Wid when she returned from the mainland with shopping had brought a cake for Ramona. It was coffee and cheese kinda like a cheesecake with a coffee base. We didn't have any plates or cutlery so we all ate with our hands. In Malay tradition Ramona got some of the cake put on her face, she didn't seem to mind she was just happy to have cake.  Dan's parents were arriving today so he went to spend the evening with them.

The next day was my off day which I spent sorting out Admin work. Dan went on snorkel survey with the volunteers and data analysis in the afternoon while Ramona did data analysis in the morning while I stayed at the house doing odd jobs. I decided to go for a trek around 3pm. I walked from the village to long beach, then up to the Windmills down a jungle path round to Coral Bay. The plan was to get a boat taxi back to the village but forgot my wallet so trekked back to long beach and then back to the village. This was over 12km walk and by time I we back I was knackered. I saw lots of Tokay geckos, household geckos and different birds. It was nice to get out of the house and explore more of the island.

Wednesday the University group arrived they were from Durham University and were called Ducks. Durham University are really important donators helps fund our project. There were 9 students, 2 guys 7 girls who were all second or first year at university. I went on a beach clean in the morning with 3 volunteers. Again we went to Tanjung Butang this was the 4th visit and there was still a lot of rubbish. Being on the north of the island it gets a lot of litter blow into the vegetation. We collected 14 bin bags and there was still more rubbish.

In the afternoon the DUCK group came over to our house for our welcome presentations. Here we talked about what we do at the three projects, these guys were really interested by what we do. It always makes it easier when people are interested in the project, they asked lots of questions and showed good knowledge.  In the evening we had Malay dinner, this was at someone's house I hadn't been to before Kah Mah house. I was taking my three volunteers the Saudi twins Nadia and Tammam and Darshini along with 3 volunteers from Dive Project. One of the dive projects volunteers was Italian he was 48 and had two kids. He was so typical Italian very flamboyant and eccentric so at dinner he was very funny with stuff he said and how he acted. 

Thursday morning there were lots of turtles to identify for data analysis, all had been seen before but there were some I hadn't ID'd before. It was nice to chill in the house on my own as Ramona was on survey with the 5 of the Duck group and Dan was on Survey with the Volunteers. After Lunch Dan went on Snorkel your with the Volunteers and Ramona chilled in the house with me.  I was off to Tiga Ruang in the evening so had stuff to sort out in the morning as well. After Lunch Ramona had some of the Ducks in our house for Data Analysis. While they were doing that I went to the kitchen. Before coming out to Malaysia I thought of shaving my hair. While being here it has started getting a bit scruffy so I went down to the Community house and got their hair clippers. I started shaving one side and realised it was very difficult to do by myself. Tammam the Saudi volunteer was watching me shave my hair and could see he wanted to have a go. I gave him the clippers and told him to follow a hairline just to do the sides and back. I'm not sure what grade the clippers were but it was cutting very short. At first I weren't sure I had a shower as a lot of hair was stuck and then I got Tammam to blend with a higher grade the top and sides. Considering how risky it was letting volunteers shave my hair I was quite happy with the outcome. After my haircut we headed for the boat to Tiga Ruang. 

Day 42-44- Such a good week

Friday Tanya one of our volunteers was still feeling ill so I just went on survey with Spencer. We paddled over to PIR and started survey in the hour we were there we only saw 3 turtles which was a little disappointing. We did however see one of the juveniles I haven't seen that often Bojin.

Saturday was my off day so I started to write the July report. This is something we as interns alternate writing each month. In the report we analyse and talk about all the data collected for that previous month. We also talk about how many volunteers we have had and any event activities for example this month we had the Outlook school group come. We have had a variety of nationalities this month, for example French, Turkish, English, Canadian and American. We also look at our underwater survey data and check things like the most sighted turtle and also we look at the nesting data and see things like average number of eggs. For July it was 85 compared to 93 last month. This is expected as the season goes on returning turtles lay less eggs. Turtles can come back to nest as many as 9 times. 

Later on we all had dinner before getting ready to go out. It was Ramona's birthday Monday so we were doing a night to Long Beach to celebrate. I made her a card using some images I took when we were at Tiga Ruang. 

We went to the Jetty at 9 there were 12 of us in total from our project and the other projects. I helped everyone get on the boat as it was quite choppy due to the wind. When we arrived at the jetty at long beach it was still a little bit choppy.

WARNING GRAPHIC DETAILS AND IMAGE
As I got off I tried to hold the front of the boat but as I did the tide dropped and the boat crushed my finger. I pulled my finger out and at first thought it was okay but as I got up the steps I looked at my finger and it was quite badly damaged. I sucked the blood away and went to sit down. 

Everyone got off the boat and then realised I was sitting down and came over. They saw my finger and asked if I was okay. I tried to brave it and got up to walk as I did the others said I went really pale and I was sweating so I sat back down.  One of the volunteers from community project, Farhan from Manchester day right in my face asking if I was okay. I was feeling dizzy so asked him to give me some space. I sat for a bit then some people headed to the beach to go to one of the beach bars to get some aid. I tried walking along the Jetty and suddenly felt like I was your to black out so sat down. Eventually i got up and walked to the bar where the others were and Maisy helped me. When we got to the beach I asked the reception at the closest resort if they have any bandages and for a glass of water as I was definitely in shock. After the water I felt a lot better and Anne wrapped my finger up. I had a crab hand.

I started feeling a bit better so I continued the night. We went to one of the main areas and took a seat. Everyone went to get a drink before the fire show. My thoughts were the more I drink the less pain I would be in and safe to say I was pretty drunk by the end of the night. Overall it was a very good night and I think Ramona enjoyed  herself. We got the boat back at 1-2ish as we were all off to Redang the next day.
So 8 o'clock we were up to get ready to leave for Redang at 9. Redang was larger islands about an hour north of the Perhentians. There was a couple of turtle projects on the island we would be visiting. One that Wid had previously interned at. These projects solely focused on nesting turtles no underwater surveying. When we arrived we picked Up Sey Ling who was the previous leader of project who now monitors all turtles projects around the province Terrenganu. We went to a spot on the island similar to PIR on the Perhentians. There were a lot of turtles but we soon found out why. Many of the tourist boats to give a different experience fed the turtles fish and squid to give a closer experience to their tourists. It was really cool watching the turtles get really close but for the wrong reasons.

I witnessed several tourists touching the turtles face etc. After this we went to the turtle project Wid worked at. They do insitu nesting which means they don't relocated the nests but instead put covers over some of them and let the hatchlings emerge naturally. They get a lot more turtles than we do probably due to the reduced tourism on Redang. They were really cool guys and their camp was awesome. They take on a lot more volunteers than us but they have a slightly larger beach and
And more nests to monitor. They also get some Hawksbill nests which we don't. They made us some brunch just noodles in a spicy sauce but was nice as we were all a bit hungry. Next stop on our trip was Redang's equivalent of Long Beach the tourist area. Here we went snorkeling to a sunken post box and we saw lots of fish and I swam above a shoal of at least 200 fish.

The final stop on the trip was to the Marine Park. Here they try to manage fishing and coral etc around the local area. We went for a snorkel saw some sharks and a moral eel. Then we headed for lunch Wid had got us all packed lunch I had Nice Daging. Which is Rice and Beef.

We then headed home and I was feeling very tired, however I had been chosen to go to Tiga Ruang to join Nick for night patrol. When I got there I fell asleep until the late shift where I took over from Nick luckily there were no turtles as I would have been no good to collect eggs. Selamat Malan (good night).

Day 40-41- Ain't No Rest For The Wicked, Well Maybe Some

Around the time I saw the snake we were expecting our boatman Joju to turn up at 11am. He did not show, Ramona then rang him and couldn't get through to him. She then tried his wife it turned out Joju double booked and had to take some people to Long Beach first before coming to get us. As much as it is helpful getting slight discount off boat trips, time management definitely needs to be worked on especially when we have places to be at certain times. Joju eventually arrived at 11:45 and took us back to the village. It was my turn to take the volunteers down for lunch, each volunteer gets 12RM for lunch and I get 10RM. This is normally enough for a decent meal and a drink for the volunteers but I usually just get a big meal and bring a water bottle. After lunch Me, Ramona, Anne and Spencer were off on a Snorkel Tour. Tanya was meant to be coming as well but still felt ill. We headed off all still quite tired, the first place we went was Turtle beach this was the reef just round from Tiga Ruang. While there we saw lots of cool fish and coral but the highlight was on the way back to the boat seeing a couple of baby black tip reef sharks.

After turtle beach we went to PIR the place we normally do our surveys as we had three tourists in our boat. Mat Lias our boatman quickly found us a turtle, Joelle who is often in the shallows feeding, she is the one with the crack in her shell. Once the tourists were happy we went to one of my favourite places I've been to D'Lagoon. While here we saw a family of 9 bump-head parrot fish I didn't manage to get any photos myself but might be able to add one from someone else's photos later. We also saw two blue spotted stingrays and a barracuda on his own luckily otherwise I would not have been in the water long. 

We got back sorted tidying our stuff from Tiga Ruang we hadn't had a chance to sort out. I also went through photos from my camera ready to put on this blog. It is Ramona's birthday Monday so we are planning to go to Long Beach Saturday, so that evening we were sorting out details. We all wanted a strict staff only night as when we have volunteers we are responsible for them and after last time I went don't want another repeat of that. There is also a staff trip planned for Sunday to Redang an island north of the Perhentian that is meant to be really nice. There is another turtle project there we link up with and share data but we were just going for a picnic and relax. Looking forward to this weekend.

The next day I went out on survey with Spencer to PIR. We didn't have much luck seeing turtles we saw three a juvenile, a male and a female. I had already learnt who the male and female were, the female was Polly and the male Long Dragon. These are two of our most commonly seen turtle at PIR. That afternoon was data analysis but this was easy as we had such few turtles and I already knew two of the three. The third one the juvenile was Bojin.

After this I went to Pitani with Anne for a relax and to get away from the village for a bit. We went to a shack called Mari Mari, apparently the interns and some of the volunteers last year used to always go there for some drinks and to chill. However when we got there it looked a bit run down, it had been hit badly during the monsoon season. The previous owner who Anne knew had left and a new owner had come in but the new owner stopped selling alcohol. Anne recognised one of the other staff there Eddie and after a little while he remembered her, he went out back and found us two beers. They were his own beers and he was a really nice guy. We sat and had a drink and then went for a sunbathe on the deck chairs. It nice to rest and not worry about anything for an hour. 

For dinner instead of cooking we had Malay Dinner at my adopted mum's house Kad Dar. She lives a few doors down the path and she always feeds me up. I always come away feeling well fed and she likes the fact I eat a lot and don't like waste. She cooked us chicken curry, vegetables, egg omelette and some tuna. It was all Sedat Gilla (which means very delicious, I think) and after we walked home and collapsed into food comas.