TBD: Another Week in Paradise

Another week here in Seychelles has gone by and I can't believe it is already August! A new group of volunteers arrived last weekend and the "oldies" got to dive twice a day on most days while the newbies are got oriented. More dives = more awesome things seen underwater like a huge octopus, a large lobster and crown of thorns, which is a huge starfish with an appetite for coral reef destruction. This week I also started learning my quad methodology - or how to survey the corals that I finally memorized. This involves dropping a 1 meter square on top of random sites and then hanging upside down while looking very closely at all of the tiny little coral recruits between 0 cm and 5 cm within the quad, and marking them down correctly. My biggest concern now is not getting chased down by lion fish and making sure my quad doesn't end up on a highly deadly flower urchin (both of which happened this week). I also got to go out on the weekly plankton pull where the staff takes samples of the plankton at specific spots. It is rather hard and involves pulling in 50 meters of rope in from the depths of the sea with a net and 16 kilo weight attached to the end. Of course, it is timed and the faster the pull the better the bragging rights. It is about as hard is it looks - my arms are still a little sore. We are now officially in whale shark season, though I have yet to see one with my own eyes. One was spotted on one of my dives a few weeks ago, but I was deep under water looking at coral. Hopefully they will turn up soon - I've been taking my camera on every dive and boat bitching trip, just in case!