Wednesday, May 8, 2013

08/05/13 Beth's Blog



Part I
This is my third week on Cap Ternay and I have to say I am absolutely loving it. Time has never flown by so quickly. The past few days have been quite difficult as it has been thundering and raining. When it rains here it is not a little shower it is torrential rain that can last either 20 minutes or up to 2 hours. Before these black clouds decided to holiday here we were able to celebrate Anzac Day. On the 25th April the Australians and a couple English climbed up Mount Matoopa at 5:30am to commemorate the soldiers of Australia and New Zealand. We were able to get to the top and overlook the whole camp as well as the two beaches that surround us. As 6:10 neared the sun started to make its appearance and produced all the different colours of the sky. The view was spectacular. As the sun started to rise to the top the angry black clouds blocked its view, it was still worth going to the top though. The clouds will hopefully pass by and we will see the last of them today.

We almost got caught in the storm on the boat today when we did our plankton pool. It was the first time I had done the plankton and learnt very quickly how to do this on rough waters. We had to pull the rope in as quick as possible without falling in the water so we have definitely improved our balance!! While pulling the rope in all of us cheered the puller on (even when a business call was being made and we had to whisper the cheers) and I have to say I’m quite impressed for our first time as we had good times. We are all looking forward to the sun now so we can get back to sunbathing and dry clothes.

Part II
This week started on a Saturday, three people left from camp so it was a sad morning with all the goodbyes. But it meant that four new people came!! They’re going through all the lectures we had when we came which means we now have much more time. Earlier on Saturday we went to the Natural History Museum and taught the children all about sharks. We had many different stations where the children could colour in, do worksheets and puzzles and the messy station where we had the Whale Shark that was made out of chicken wire and the children covered it in paper machè.

Yesterday I went on my second survey dive at Willie’s Bay which was beautiful and definitely my favourite dive spot now. We saw a Scorpion fish and a giant Moray Eel; it’s a very rocky dive site so there were hundreds of oysters, Christmas tree worms and Feather Duster Worms.

Today we had a Cap Ternay clean up; we went up Mount Matoopa and cleaned up the trail to make it more visible for the next walkers. We hacked away the leaves and roots that trip you up on the way. We couldn’t go all the way up because it had been raining all night long and so it was a bit slippery. Apart from the ants and spider webs it was a fun cleanup with everyone joining in.

We are also currently doing our biological surveys, so those doing the internship and the Dive Master have different tasks every week. Our first task was to talk about the different species that we survey we had to explain how to identify them and their importance in the ecosystem. This week we had to present in front of everyone the importance of the Coral Reef, the Mangroves and Sea Grass Beds. I’m finding the lectures really interesting, as I don’t know much about this is in the first place. The term ‘you learn something new every day’ definitely applies here!! 

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