Monday morning I was scheduled to take four volunteers to one of the beaches on the north of the small island to do a beach clean. This beach was called Tanjung Butang, as we approached it didn't seem to have much rubbish on it. However, when we arrived looking into the vegetation we could see loads of rubbish. We split up I went with Anne, Ramona's friend. Between the two of us we filled 15 bin bags while the others three volunteers filled 7. After collecting 22 bags of rubbish we went for a quick swim to cool off and saw a couple of baby reef sharks. When the boatman arrived, Joju, he only brought his small boat. We both looked at each other like this was going to be interesting getting all the bags onto the boat along with the five of us but we did it.
We got the boat on Monday around 5:30pm with all our gear for Tiga Raung. We set up camp and made sure all the tourists left the beach before 7pm. There was a couple who said they booked a return boat at 6:30pm, but it had not arrived so we arranged another one for them and as we did their boat arrived. Tourists are leaving it later and later until they leave Tiga Raung which is getting annoying. Anne asked if I wanted to join her for some meditation on the beach before we cooked dinner. This was so relaxing watching the sunset listing to a cool song. Anne like I said was German, she lives 2 hours from Berlin and was a Police Woman. She recently has got a new job in a new department for the German government. It was interesting listening to how different and similar things were at the project when she was here compared to now. Even the landscape at Tiga Ruang had changed, not only the fallen tree from the other day, but there was some rocks she often slept in front of was now buried in sand. I was doing the late shift with Tanya and Spencer, while Ramona and Anne did the early shift. They went on patrol at 8pm and soon after Anne came back at 8:30pm saying there was already a turtle. This was the earliest there had ever been a turtle when I had been there, the sun had only just gone down. We joined Ramona and Anne at the turtles nest, this was a good turtle it made one body pit and one egg chamber so by the time we got there Ramona was already collecting the eggs. I helped Ramona with measurements of the carapace and filled in the data sheet. This turtle laid 83 eggs, as we left the turtle the turtle was camouflaging the nest it started to rain. We got back to camp and the heavens opened, it did not stop raining til 2am. At 2 I started my patrol with the volunteers, but no more turtles that night.
The next morning it was a slow morning everyone was very tired. Anne was quite sporty and wanted to do a mini workout in the morning and I joined her for a bit, even early in the morning it was still very hot and sweaty. After this I made my new favourite breakfast, fried bread, bananas and condensed milk. They use a lot of condensed milk over here. We chilled during the day in the hammocks and on the beach. Our volunteers went snorkeling and the rest of us shared stories. Time goes so quick on Tiga Ruang. We checked for tourists that hadn't left the beach and then made dinner. After dinner, me, Ramona and Anne went to watch the sunset in front of the ship wreck. It's so beautiful here and we got some awesome photos. We were all so chilled out and enjoying the beauty of these islands. Later I started patrol, this time I did the early shift this time, again with Tanya and Spencer. We had no turtles, but we did release some hatchlings, 182. A lot had to be excavated due to ants invasion into the nests. We had a bit of a storm here that woke me up, but soon passed. The storms here don't tend to last too long however when they are here they are quite ferocious. Anne and Ramona had one turtle nest on their late shift, she came up at 3am and didn't leave until 6:30am. She laid over 100 eggs. In the night Tanya got very ill and was throwing up. This was weird as we had all eaten the same things but she was the only one ill. I asked if you wanted to return to the village the next day and they said yes.
During the day Wednesday, we had the guys from the Community Project come visit us with our volunteers from our project. The interns at community hadn't visited Tiga Raung before and their reaction when they got here summed up how nice it is here. They had been trekking to long beach from the village and then up to the windmill and back to long beach which is a decent walk. They had their lunch and we gave them a tour and an explanation of what we do here. They weren't here long and just as they were leaving they shouted for us. A few hatchlings had come out of one of the nests and were trapped against the hatchery fence. I grabbed the hatchery key and went in to rescue the hatchlings with Ramona and Anne. When we got inside we noticed red ants had got inside three of the nests and started attacking hatchlings, some that hadn't developed yet. I dug out the three nests and we put the hatchlings into buckets depending on their condition. A few hatchlings had been bitten so much they were already dead. Almost all of them had needed ants to be removed, the larger red ants have a very strong bite that you have to pinch the head of the ant to remove it otherwise the ants head stays stuck in the hatchling. This was such a depressing part of the job seeing these ants affecting so many hatchlings. While we were working in saving as many hatchlings as possible, tourists had started crowding round the hatchery taking photos. When we were done as we were trying to leave the hatchery, people crowded us trying to get photos of the hatchlings, but we quickly stopped this and told them no. We don't want people to be encouraged to come to the camp looking to take photos of hatchlings. One guy still tried to attempt to take a picture, but Ramona saw him and told him off. Tanya and Spencer went back with the others. Back at camp we sorted through all the hatchlings ready to release in the evening.
Later on Ramona and Anne went for a snorkel. While the others were gone some tourists came to the camp while I was reading my book (which I've almost finished) asking about the project. I answered her questions and she asked if tourists could stay at Tiga Ruang one night. I politely told her no only if she joined the project for a week and that the beach was only allowed staff and volunteers from our project on the beach at night. She didn't seem to mind to much and thanked me for the information I gave her. After she left I saw Anne coming back to camp followed by a family. As they got closer I could see that the young boy was bleeding holding his head. He had slipped playing on the rocks and cut his head, hand and knees. We got the first aid kit and cleaned his wounds and put a plaster on his hand. The family were German so Ramona and Anne comforted the boy and the family were very grateful. Again not all heroes wear capes. That evening we sat and watched the sunset again before making dinner. We all ate so much and was really tired and full. I played rock paper scissors with Ramona to decide who does the early or late shift. I won and was doing the early shift and Anne would overlap on both of our shifts. I started my patrol and Anne decided to join me anyway to watch the stars. Due to the lack of light pollution the sky if there are no clouds are so clear, I've seen the milky way one day. On return to camp I was about to walk into the hut when I heard a noise, I shinned my torch and saw this really angry looking crab probably the size of a size 9 shoe.On the next patrol we released most the hatchlings that had been excavated earlier. Their were a few that had died but considering how many ants some had on them this was not surprising. After this we waited at the end of the beach and could see a storm rolling in on the other island. It was all in one very large cloud and we could see bolts in the cloud and striking the ground. As we sat there the beach started getting darker like something out of a horror film so we walked back. When we got back to camp this strong wind came in and we had to get anything loose that was out and put them into boxes or inside the hut. The wind was quite refreshing and it didn't rain which was good. When the wind died down we did another patrol as we were walking down, Jarr one of the fisheries staff who speaks good English was waiting by the hatchery. I have developed a nice relationship with Jarr we always say hello to each other in the village and ask how each other. He asks me in English and I ask him in Malay. He is slowly teaching me more Malay but is often happy talking English with me. Jarr had some hatchlings to release when we met him, we went a bit further down the beach and released 72 in total. I didn't have any nesting turtles on my shift and neither did Ramona. In the morning we packed up and just before we left we saw a snake in the branches by camp. It was a green whip snake, this was the first snake I had seen on the island so I was super excited.
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