Thursday, February 2, 2012

02/02/12 Settling in at Cap Ternay



Do you make bread from scratch almost daily where you live? Do you even know how it’s done? Personally, my answers to these questions would have been “no” and “no” two weeks ago, but now it’s “yes” and “yes”. Bread making is just one of the new skills we have learned since arriving here on base in the Seychelles. It has been nice to break out of our normal daily lives back at home and come live close to nature, out in the wild and rugged beauty of the Seychelles. I’ve never heard rain and wind like we experience quite often here. But it’s a refreshing change of pace after a long hot day so no-one seems to mind too much. Many of us are about ready to start surveying this week and the addition of the plankton pull trips on the big boat once a week have added a neat new task to look forward to. Who will be the King and Queen of plankton pulling this phase? We’ll have to wait and see.

Two and a half weeks in and it has started to feel like home here. Our bodies ache less now after the hard working days and the sun isn’t as sweltering as it was that first moment we stepped off the plane and took our first deep breaths of the Seychelles. The challenges have been great but we’ve all made it through and I do believe friendships are a brewin’! New place, new people, new climate, new daily activities; so much newness that it can make your head spin. But to be living in such beauty and seeing such amazing creatures, such as whale sharks, sea turtles and manta rays, well, how could we not fall in love with the Seychelles? And “wow” how different diving is when you’ve been studying the creatures that you have been seeing. No longer are we just floating through this alien environment simply looking at the “pretty” fish, barely even registering what we have seen. Now our minds are alive as we automatically begin searching our memories for the scientific names and key features of the organisms we are seeing. This, in turn, brings us to truly look at all the amazing creatures around us. It has definitely brought our diving experiences to a new level!


Cooling off at the waterfall


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