15/11/13 Weekly Update from Cap Ternay

The Office: Baie Ternay Marine Park

This is the first post in a new series, Weekly Update from Cap Ternay. It won’t be nearly as humorous as the Saturday Night Live Weekend Update, but it will hopefully give you an insight into the week-to-week life here at Cap Ternay, information about upcoming events and other exciting news, all written by the staff here on base.  

Today is the final departure/arrival day of the year for us here on the marine expedition at Cap Ternay. We said goodbye to 6 volunteers and picking up 5 new volunteers to enjoy the final 4 weeks of the year here with us.

Alison, one of our departing volunteers.

      The departing volunteers had an exciting final week on base, as we had a 5 meter whale shark just outside the bay for 2 days. On Sunday, 5 divers caught a glimpse of it on their safety stop, but no one had a camera to document it. On Sunday, 5 more divers spotted it and were able to swim with it for 15 minutes! The whale shark swam around and underneath the divers. The rest of the volunteers and staff on the boat were able to get in the water and snorkel with it as well, making for one very happy group! Fortunately a couple volunteers had cameras and were able to get some great photos of the whale shark to send to our project partner, MCSS, for identification. It is quite rare to actually see a whale shark on a dive, so everyone was thrilled to have the opportunity spend time with it underwater. 

Whale Shark!

Volunteer Brian with the whale shark

The wind and water have been very calm recently, so we were able to get to a couple different dive sites that can only be visited when conditions are perfect – Conception and Cap Matoopa.  

At Conception, looking back to Cap Matoopa

Conception 

We had another competitive game of Rounders: Fish vs. Coral during low tide in the bay. (Rounders is like baseball, in case any Americans are wondering.) Fish are currently ahead, 3 games to 0, but coral will catch up soon!

Fish, at bat

The staff team and volunteers cooked a delicious Creole BBQ for the final BBQ night on Wednesday complete with curry, BBQ chicken, sausages and various Creole side dishes.

Staff serving the Creole BBQ to volunteers

Over the next 4 weeks, we have a few exciting community events for the incoming volunteers to participate in. We are taking part in SUBIOS, Seychelles Festival of the Sea, on November 23-24 in Beau Vallon. GVI staff and volunteers will be there with information and educational marine games for kids and adults to learn a bit more about the sea that surrounds this beautiful country. Did you know that Seychelles is comprised of 99% ocean and 1% land? 

After SUBIOS, we have our Christmas Party with the kids at the President’s Village Children’s Home. We buy gifts for each of the kids with money raised by volunteers during our quarterly fund raising events. We give the children their gifts, eat a Creole dinner with them and play games. Volunteers are currently raising money for Christmas for the kids with a “Battle of the Beards.” No one has a Santa beard just yet, but there are still two weeks left to grow a big, gray beard. Check out the fundraising site and photos here:

www.justgiving.com/GVICapTernay-BattleOfTheBeards and support the volunteers. 

That’s all from here.  I think I hear the van pulling up, time to go welcome the new volunteers!

Kate

Base Manager

15/11/13 Weekly Update from Cap Ternay