14/05/2013 New month, new volunteers

This week two new volunteers arrived: James and me, Phil. We really didn’t know what to expect, on the way to Curieuse we were happy but at the same time a bit nervous. After finally arriving on Curieuse all of our doubts disappeared. The staff were really friendly and the location of the camp is amazing. We spent our first few days listening to presentations about the different projects, which include Coco de Mer, mangroves and bird surveys.

On Sunday, we met the other volunteer, Flo. She arrived two months ago and is staying for another month. We are only 6 on camp, 3 volunteers and 3 staff members.

On Monday we went for our first bird watching ‘tweet’ with Noel. Pat gave us a lecture about birds the day before, which helped, but we did not remember all of them. The walk was fun; we had to walk over beaches and through water to reach the different observation points

Tuesday started off very early, at 5 am. We went on a Coco de Mer walk with Zach. It was worth waking up so early, so we could reach the top before the usual heat. It was really rewarding watching the sunrise while having breakfast. We spent the rest of the morning making our way through the thick vegetation to get to the Coco de Mer palm trees.

From Wednesday to Friday, two of the staff had a workshop over at the ranger station.  So Zach took the opportunity to renovate the kitchen with the volunteers. This involved repainting the walls and the cupboard, and cleaning the floor and the different gas burners. We also had a couple games of volleyball, which Zach all lost.

14/05/2013 New month, new volunteers