Life In Seychelles

The countdown is over!

After 4 days of traveling, 3 airplane rides, and meeting 2 lovely friends in London, 1 tired Shanna arrived in Seychelles.

I'd been dreaming about it for years, planning it for months and packing for weeks, and I'm finally here!

I'm in the Seychelles and....

• The ocean is warmer than my shower

• SPF 50 sunscreen isn't strong enough

• A typical day at the office consists of what tourists call recreation

   I've been in the Seychelles for what feels like ages and have settled down into the routines of base camp. After arriving we discovered that we were going to be based on Mahe Island, which is much more comfortable and larger than Curiuse. There are 18 volunteers and 7 staff members. After a few days we all learned the routines of how to maintain a self-sufficient camp.

   Our base camp is located on an abandoned youth center. There are several derelict buildings that the locals stripped for materials but two of them were spared and the government rents them to Global Vision International (GVI). We have running water and electricity as well as a working kitchen. We sleep in dorms and hang mosquito nets from precarious strings run from the ceiling beams. We cook in shifts; some are better at cooking than others!

   The reason we're all out here is to do underwater survey work for GVI. This phase the focus is on coral abundance line transect surveys, turtle surveys and plankton tows. GVI gives all its raw data collected by us volunteers to several different scientific organizations that use it to monitor reef health amongst other things.

   Besides running the camp to serve our basic needs and sanitation – we have to learn about what goes on behind the scenes of scuba diving. When you go to a dive center for a recreational dive, everything is taken care of for you; all you have to do is show up and go down underwater. With a volunteer organization there are no paid workers to sort things out for you. We have a compressor and all have to learn how to maintain and run it to fill the tanks. We have to clean and take care of our regulators and BCD's and kit up our own equipment.

   The hardest part so far has been the learning the 49 different coral genre found in the Seychelles. Those of you who know a bit about phylogeny will know that under genus is the species level and each species of coral looks a bit different. While we don't need to know the names of the species we have to recognize and place them in the correct genre. Being a marine biology major does help with learning the Latin names but I studied things found in the temperate ocean so I've never learned about corals before and it's all very new to me.

   I've been diving everyday which has thus far consisted of coral spots where the staff point out random corals and quiz us on what they are. I am devastated to admit that my underwater camera BROKE on my first dive (WTF?!) but hope to collect photos from other people. Anyway, once we're competent at recognizing the corals and passed the exam we're going to start our survey work.

P.S. The water column has been slowly filling with plankton and we're hoping to spot some whale sharks around our beach soon.