Getting Adjusted

I'm in the Seychelles and...

• The day starts at 5:30am and ends at Beer o'clock (six pm)

• Lectures on whalesharks and sea turtles are part of the schedule

• Any free time goes towards studying septa, costa, columella, coenosteum etc...

   I'm adjusting to communal life here on base slowly. It's hard to find “me” time in a big chunk; I have to steal it bit by bit – 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there. But the perk of living with a big group of people is there's always fun to be had. At one of our nightly meetings one of the volunteers started a game of Murder. He wrote out everyone's name on a bit of paper, locations around base and 'weapons.' I was to kill Zoe by the compressor with a ping pong paddle. Unfortunately I was killed at the picnic table with a snorkel before I could complete my kill. At the Friday night BBQ party some people went on a killing rampage – getting people by the fruit table with a toothbrush or in a wetsuit with a tampon (that was an interesting one!)

   My knowledge of coral has increased by leaps and bounds and I’d like to consider myself a bit of an expert now. Five people passed the exam on the first round, and I'm proud to say I'm one of them, scoring 100%, my marine biology degree has come in handy! I've been signed off on all of the corals underwater – meaning I can competently identify all the variations. Next week I'm moving on to surveying.

   Every day I'm going on two dives which if I were paying for at a dive shop would cost me a fortune! There are four dives a day and our compressor is running all the time to keep the tanks filled. My kit has become like a second skin to me and I'm completely comfortable with all the different tubes and knobs.

   There have been diving issues with some of the volunteers, and since the point of this expedition is to be surveying underwater, if you can't dive – there's really no point in being here. One guy got a burst eardrum on his first dive and after seeing the specialist he's told he can't dive for six weeks. He rang up his insurance company and they strung him along for a while before deciding that this is a medical accident (well durrr!) and will pay for the cancellation. We had a goodbye party for him and it was sad to see him go.

   Our base is located in Cap Ternay, and Bay Ternay is a protected marine park. This leads to an amazing variety of coral right off our home beach, but is really far from civilization.

   The closest shop and bus station is Port Launay – a 45 minute walk away. And this isn't a leisurely stroll; it's a hike through the mountains over three gigantic hills. By the time I arrive at the bus station I'm drenched in sweat and madly fanning myself with a fan.

   To get to Victoria, the only town of any size here in Seychelles, it's another 45min bus ride on the local bus – which whips around hairpin corners at breakneck speeds. By the time I arrive in town to use the internet or exchange money, I'm near dead and it's all I can do to walk to the shop and treat myself to a milkshake.

   MCSS has come to our base to do a presentation on their research subject – whalesharks!! Here at GVI we help them out by doing weekly plankton tows and collecting water temperature data. MCSS (Marine Conservation Society Seychelles) is one of three whaleshark research groups in the world. They've spotted three animals near our bay just this week and since the water is getting murky with plankton (our visibility is decreased to about seven meters) there's a good chance we'll be seeing whalesharks here soon!!