TRACC - April

28/4/2013: Where is everyone??

25/4/2013: Tubing and wave boarding... Yes we are all children deep down

22/4/2013: Turtle project description

I got a request for a more detailed description of the turtle project that I work on here but before I give that, I would like to clear up one thing since my last two posts seem contradictory: It is hugely interesting to be out here, we do a lot of interesting work and we go on cool trips to the other islands BUT Sundays are very boring since Sundays are non-work-dry-days (no work for any of us and no diving for the divers) and we therefore have to try entertain us selves which can be difficult to do for a whole day on a deserted island! However, I do think that it is a necessary day to have since we do get really tired during the week and we all need a day a week to let our wounds heal(most people have nasty infected wounds on feet and legs that seems to get worse every day we are in the salt water) and to let our hands and feet dry a bit so that we do not develop fish-like fins. So, I'll survive being bored one day a week :)

Right, so now on to the turtle project description!! The question was: "I would very much like to hear more about the turtles, the turtle patrols and see some photos of the turtles! Are the patrols mainly to protect the turtles from other animals or from peole stealing the eggs?"

The main objective of the turtle volunteer project is to monitor and collate turtle population counts around Pom Pom island. There are two different species inhabitating the waters around Pom Pom Island, the main species being the Green Turtle and the other species being the Hawksbill Turtle which is less commonly seen. Both species are protected species, the Green Turtle being classified as an endangered species while the Hawksbill is a critically endangered species and it is therefore in our interest to monitor the population sizes of the two species and it is also in our interest to ensure that as many of the turtle eggs as possible hatch so that the turtle populations can increase in the future.

"A female Hawksbill Turtle"

The monitoring of the turtle population sizes is carried out by conducting population count surveys at high and low tide on a daily basis. The high tide surveys aims to count feeding turtles as the high tide allow them to move up onto the seagrass bed that are found a couple of meters from the coast. Low tide surveys are conducted at the wall edge which is the place where turtles like to rest and this has to be done during low tide since the wall edge is fairly deep and it can therefore be very difficult to see all the turtles on the bottom at any other time that low tide. Both surveys are carried out by snorkelling long transects in different designated sectors around the island and then simply noting the species and the sex of each of the turtles found along the transect. Special characteristics like injuries etc are also noted if there are any, and these data are used to make up a turtle identification database (we fx have our resident turtle named George which was identified to have its territory right off the coast from our camp and we now all know when we see him).

This data allows TRACC to be able to monitor how the turtle populations develop in the future - it is especially interesting to see if the turtle populations change over time as the coral reefs are being restored by the use of artificial reef building structures. This is however, a very long term project that is only in the beginning stages as last year was the first year that these surveys were carried out and so I don't believe that I will get to see any results from all the surveys before I leave in the end of June but I guess that is the way things are when during scientific experiments/surveys.

While the surveys are long term projects of which the results might not be ready for many years, the beach patrols that we conduct twice every night can be classified as showing fast results! Every night, twice a night, we patrol the beaches to ensure that eggs from all nests are being relocated to the Pom Pom Island Resort's hatchery and this is done to prevent the high volume of illegal egg poaching. It has been illegal to collect turtle eggs for a while but it is still common for locals to eat the eggs and just in the last few days we have experienced turtle nests having been dug up and the eggs taken before we got a chance to get to them - very frustrating!!!

The patrol in itself is very simple, we just walk up and down the beach two hours after dark and one hour after high tide and when turtle tracks are found we look for the nest. While I have been here we have still not found a turtle nesting but if that happens we are to keep 5 meters distance from the nesting turtle, wait for her to dig a hole and once she has layed the eggs and returned to the ocean the eggs are to be placed one at a time into a bucket that is then brought to the hatchery. The turtles are very sensitive during nesting and it is therefore very important that they are not distrubed - we therefore do not carry flaslights or cameras with flash, do not make any loud noises and do absolutely not in any way touch the turtle before or after nesting.

Nesting season is only just about to begin but we do see more and more turtle track on the beach at night so we should hopefully soon have lots of eggs in the hatchery. It takes approximately 2 months for the eggs to hatch and once they hatch in the hatchery they are being guided into the ocean where they swim off to play around for around 20 years until they become sexually mature at which point they are very likely to come back to the beach where they hatched to lay eggs of their own if they are females.

I hope this answers the question and that it has given you a bit of an idea of what it is that I spend my days doing!! 

I gotta go, I have a low tide survey coming up in 15 minutes so I better go get changed into our TRACC uniform (read bikini - we all more or less live in our swimsuits all day, every day)

Be safe and I will try to be the same,

Susannah x

21/4/2013: ....... Hm, I really can't think of an interesting title

21/4/2013: The island of Mataking and a saturday night jungle party

After Ivan's sudden departure as well as a few planned departures we are now down to a nice little group of 11 people which means that we have a lot more freedom when it comes to planning our fun-dive-days! TRACC only has 2 boats (very tiny boats that are both struggling when we load all our dive and snorkel gear onto them) but yesterday our local staffmember Miti offered to help take some of us in his boat so that we could have a nice day at Mataking. Mataking is very similar to many of the other islands around here but it has a shipwreck not far from the coast which the divers really wanted to see and us snorkelers went along for some more beautiful snorkelling. While I am here to work on the turtle project I have been allowed (because I am here for so long) to do a bit of diving now and again but unfortunately I couldn't dive yesterday because my eye still isn't completely perfect and I didn't want to risk hurting it - But I am sure I will get another chance to dive at the wreck before I go home so it is okay :)

The little day trip we have every now and again are really nice - they almost make it seem like there is a difference between weekdays and weekend (even though there isn't really much difference, every day is a sunny day in the ocean)!!! However yesterday it wasn't so much the trip to Mataking that made it seem like weekend, it was the jungle party we had afterwards! After returning home to TRACC we had "happy-hour" sitting in the water having cold beer and chatting away.... Oh how sweet life can be with a cold beer in your hand, sitting in the ocean watching the sunset!!!! :D

After a few hours of that we had a nice dinner and then the drinking game madness started! I have never meet a bunch of people that knows as many drinking games as my fellow volunteers.... It is SO much fun!!! We played "huh", "the witch, what witch? Oh the witch!" and lots of card games! We basically laughed for 4 hours in a row, it was GREAT!!

Carys and I ended the night after most of the others had gone to bed by doing a little turtle patrol but we unfortunateely didn't find any nesting turtles but it was still a really good day!!

Lis, Lis og B&B tak for de søde hilsner! Jeg lover at passe rigtig godt på mig selv herude :)

I will leave you now and go back out in the sun and join the rest of our group that have garthered on the jetty for a sunday relaxation session.

Susannah x

19/4/2013: Work trip to Kapikan

Most of us are now feeling a lot better and we are slowly getting back to normal except that Ivan had to leave early as his outing to the hospital turned out to be a bit more serious than first expected! Ivan is going to be fine but he has to go back to keep out of the water for a while and his condition has to be monitored so he came back this afternoon to pack his things - It was a very sad ending to his stay here but we all wish him the best of luck with his recovery and hope he is able to continue his journey to Indonesia where he was planning on doing his divermaster training soon.

After saying goodbye to Ivan, a couple of us went to Kapikan to collect hard coral that we plant on the artificial ribbon reefs that we have set up under water in various spots around the island. Kapikan is a beautiful coral reef located 20-25km away, it is very easy to get to and the snorkels there are amazing but unlike Kalapuan, Kapikan doesn't have much fish but the corals are so stunning that no fish are needed to be mesmerized!!

We took a few photos but they are still on the underwater camera which the divers just took diving but as soon as I get a chance, I will try upload a few :)

This evening we just had a quiet night - Last week we had an Italian family with 2 kids (11 and 14 years old) and now that they have left we needed a quiet evening without too much acion (they were very sweet kids but they talked non-stop and we constantly needed to do things so they didn't get bored). So we just watched a film and I am now going to bed!! 

I hope you are all happy! Sweeet dreams to you all,

Susannah x

18/4/2013: A cribbled bunch

When looking from afar we might look like a group of young, healthy and hardworking marine lovers but when looking a little closer you will soon see that currently this is not the case at all!!! We are really just a sad bunch of cribbled people on an almost deserted island..... While some people are still standing strong, most of us have by now a wide range of health issues that are preventing us from working as much as we want to! Out of the 12 people currently working at TRACC only 4 are completely healthy and happy while the rest of us have a wide range of silly little problems. Sofie have been out of the water for a few days now since she accidently toughed a piece of fire coral which is poisoness, Jonathan and Flic have ear infections, Amelia a bad stomach, Shawn problems with infected blisters on his feet, Ivan got stung by a crown of thorns which potentially can numb your body completely and he therefore had to go to the hospital on the mainland earlier today and I somehow stupidly made a scrath in my eye and cannot wear my contact lenses (luckily it is not in the cornia so my sight is not affected but it still hurts)..... So as you can see we are a very sad bunch!!!! However, the mood is not affected at all and that is really the most important thing :)

I have been out of the water for a little more than a day now (which around here is almost unthinkable and highly uncomfortable because of the heat) but my eye is slowly looking better and I am hoping that I will be able to snorkel tomorrow (I miss my slow mornings with the turtles already)! If not, then we will just have to continue with kite project which is really a good thing since we are yet to get useful data. Today was the first day we got a good shot and as soon as I have imported the video I will try to upload a little bit of it so you can see what it looks like. Since the last time we are now using a different camera and a different boat and the photage has improved 100% (the kite has not crashed since the little accident a few days ago... yay) - we are still far from happy with the results but we are very, very happy with the progress.

I am getting reallyt tired of my eyes tearing up all the time but I am so pleased that it has happened a week when I am not the only snorkeller. Carys and Shawn have been doing most of the turtle surveying with me standing on the side line helping and guiding them and they have done a really great job - by the end of this week we should have a good bit of data that we can pass on to Steve Oakley. I know that I am not a fully qualified scientist but I reckon the turtle surveying data we collect would be perfect for a dissertation (bachelor project) write up but since I had already done most of my dissertation when I found out that I was to repeat the year I am not really interested in going any further with the data than what we will be doing here.

However, if any of you are sitting out there somewhere thinking that you don't have any ideas of what to do for your dissertation or thesis and have a few months you don't know what to do with, you should definitely come out here and collect data (it doesn't necessarily have to be turtle surveying there are lots of other projects going on that I reckon could give really good results)!

Right, I gotta go, dinner is almost ready and while I am not sure how it is possible, doing almost nothing today apart from a little kite flying and survey instruction, has made me really hungry!

Susannah x

16/4/2013: Crashing and sinking....

Today we had the kite out on the boat for the first time (we have flown it from the beach a few times, trying to make it more stable) and as much as I would love to say it was a success I am afraid that was a lie because be almost lost the kite!!! One of our boats currently has a big hole in it and we therefore needed to wait for the divers to be dropped at north tip before we could get the kite flying (I also believe the divers were sort of the reason we failed but I will explain that later).

After dropping the divers, Joe, Fletcher and I were to try to get the kite flying after the boat while sailing over the shallow reef area but we had a few starting difficulties!!We didn't manage to get the kite up at first attempt but luckily the kite wasn't far from the boat when it fell and only parts of the kite got wet. After readjusting a few attachments that we had made (we had added flip flops to try making it float in case it hit the water but that arrangement didn't seem to be aerodynamic enough) we made a second attempt which was much more successful!! We got the kite up, the line out to 70 meters, it was stable (as stable as you can get a kite that has a lot of gear attached) and it flew beautifully! For a while at least.......

As the divers were still out we had to turn the boat around and that in itself was not a problem, we somehow managed to turn the boat in a massive circular movement but when we had turned about 160 degrees the boat engine made a little hick up and the tail of the kite somehow got tangled into the camera attachment and the kite crashed immediately!!!! It looked so cool but we knew that the odds were the kite would sink and therefore tried to get back to where the kite had hit the water as fast as we good but dragging in 70 meters of line takes a while!! The end product was 40 meters of tangled line and a kite that was well on its way down the water column.......

I think all three of us held our breaths for a while when we pulled the kite out of the water but miraculesly nothing happened to the kite at all! The camera was still attached, it wasn't wet inside and all parts of the kite were still there - I cannot describe how relieved we were!! It is always great to have a successful experiment but at that moment I think we were as happy with no damaged having been done than we would have been with the kite flying and filming the way it was meant to... After 1½ of untangelling the line we had a look at the video that was recorded by the kite and while it is still far from great we now have a few ideas of what we need to improve before we try again!

How are you doing? Are you happy? I heard that spring has finally arrived in Copenhagen but how are things looking in Dublin?

I'll be back with more stories soon (hopefully even stories of kite flying success),

Susannah x