29/01/11 Land Ladies - Week Three

Blantantly happy (all of us) with the improved seating area…definite chill out zone, sofa an’ all!

Last Friday spotting four Green Turtles on our snorkel; my first in-water spot, other than the fish!!

Over the ‘water’ for the weekly shop – shouting ‘3 scrubbers’ through stocked shelves looks interesting to say the least!

Georgia came over from MCSS (Marine Conservation Society of the Seychelles) to turtle walk and info talk.

Three turtles to date, 1 lay, 2 digs as observed by us wee ladies (lots of tracks recorded daily).

Hatchling tracks en mass, only 3-4cm wide (hold huge ‘cute’ factor), over the last week on most of our surveyed beaches.

Role play; ‘Disaster as two GVI staff injured’, all Emergency First Responders are called upon for assistance! (See photo)

Experiencing the hardest snurtle (snorkel turtle survey to you!) to date as the current changes direction!

Extreme walking to the max as sections now being sprinted up to the Coco de Mer (just a slight fitness brag!!).

Apart from the above, we our now surveying at least 20 Coco de Mer trees each site visit. Measuring with help of long stick and attached tape measure has certainly helped! I did get a little excited when we found our first mature nut still on a tree!

We managed our first Mangrove transect survey, navigating over ‘props’, ‘knees’ and ‘knobbly’ roots. Naturally being the happy wee ladies that we are, burst into song, ‘in d’ mangroves, the mighty mangroves….’ you get the drift!!

It has been fantastic to see the hatchling tracks this week but we remain acutely aware that only 1 in 10,000 survives the long journey that lies ahead of them as they emerge from the nest.

Well I would say this pretty much sums up the week and we are both looking forward to a full on survey week.

Until then it’s super heroes & super villians as tomorrow night’s theme, ‘Poison Ivy’ for me then!

Keep an eye out for any ‘extra special’ blogs, as we are keeping our fingers crossed for next week.

View worth sprinting up for!


All hands on deck.

29/01/11 Land Ladies - Week Three