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BAHAMAS - FIELD UPDATES - WEEKS 3-8
The last five weeks have been very eventful. In the beginning of our expedition we would enjoy things like playing volleyball and basketball with locals at a nearby park on days that we didn’t dive. That was all fun and games until week four when the locals broke the basketball hoop! That is around the time that we began our fish lectures and underwater “Fish Pointies” which were lead by Stuart and Jamie.
Since Sunday is our day off we would go to a local diner and watch the Olympics. One Sunday we watched the Superbowl there along with the gang from Forfar. (A field station close to our camp that focuses on educational research).
On Saturday’s we usually stay on camp and all hang out around the bon fire, however, sometimes we will have a few drinks on camp and then head out to local bars or Party in the Park where there are always a lot of people and loud music. At Party in the Park there were live bands which were a lot of fun to watch.
Over the last four weeks we have advanced our fish knowledge from doing “Fish Pointies” to taking underwater fish tests where we have to name 70 different fish and know all their different phases. (Juvenile, Intermediate and Terminal.)
Now everyone has passed their advanced open water dive training. We had to complete certain tasks like writing random numbers in order or our name backwards at 30m. Some had a harder time doing so than others.
Quite a lot of the time the wind has got the better of us, meaning we haven’t been able to do any diving. To fill these spaces we often visit ‘blue holes’. These are variously sized lakes, which formed over thousands of years by underground caves collapsing in on themselves. This has left incredibly deep and almost perfectly round sources of fresh water dotted all over the island. The biggest one we visit has a dive platform at about 5m, which we have been trying increasingly daring flips off, including the ‘gainer’. Some succeeded, and made it look really impressive, others, including myself, did not, and made massive fools out of ourselves. There is some great film to prove this too.
Every Thursday we have a quiz or game night, ranging from countdown to a thrilling game of dungeons – basically manhunt around the camp and beach. When this was announced, Andy our expedition leader, didn’t seem hugely thrilled, and announced he wasn’t going to make a big effort to win. However, when he came back from his tent 5 minutes later dressed in full camouflaged gear all that seemed forgotten. I don’t think I will ever forget the site of 20-30 year old men, running around the campsite laughing manically the whole time.
We are also currently in the midst of a murder game, the second we have played since arriving in camp. This involves each person being told a victim, a murder weapon, a piece of clothing and the site of the murder, then using deceit and cunning to carry it out – naturally we were all pretty good at that! Things became more tricky when Iain, who is here on an internship, decided to write the game: ‘Killing’ someone on the dive boat, wearing the chav hat and using the washing up bowl as your weapon could be interesting!
Most of us have now seen a shark whilst diving, a blacktip, reef and a hammerhead have all been reported. Seeing these incredible creatures really does take your breath away. We are also planning a shark dive for the end of the phase. We will sit on the bottom of the ocean as a group as a big ball of meat is lowered into the water. The resulting feast is something we are all itching to see.
It has also been announced that Scott Gray has been invited to stay on as the trainee for the next phase. We all wish him the best with this – well done Scott!
A few nights ago, ten of us decided that the campsite wasn’t quite remote enough for us, so we all packed up and moved to a neighboring island for the night. We set up camp and built a campfire during the day, and all was looking good until it came to after dinner when we had to swim across in the cold and pitch black. However, we all made it unharmed, and had a great night. Unfortunately, it did start pouring with rain at one point so many of the group swam back to shore – only 4 out of 10 of us managed to stay the whole night!
Now that surveying the reef has started all we need to do is prey the wind holds off so that we can all contribute to the conservation side of the project.
