Gap-day in SDP.
Door: Evert
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Evert
09 Januari 2011 | Trinidad en Tobago, Charlotteville
Day 27, January 7th, terrace corner, CoralCay Cottage, Charlotteville, TT, 8.52am local time.Basically, you want some time to rest, sleep, write this diary, go to the internet-cafe (at which the connections are restored!) and collect some fruits, but there is no time to do these things until Sunday!). Yesterday, I finally passed both the Fish-exam (around 200 species) and the coral-disease-exam (100 sorts of coral and disease altogether). I'm happy, because very subtle, detailed distinguishing features and storing those in a graphic memory are not my strongest points. Due to the scientific relevance of the surveys being done (CoralCay produces several scientific papers per year), the demands on our species-recognition-skills are 90% correctness. That means that you pass your test only if you score 90% or higher…. Bummer!
While writing this, the morning dive has ended for the people who went diving. That means you see them leaving the boat (which is still the ‘Workshop’), a rented fishing boat-now-used-for-diving, going to the wash-area. In fact, per minute you spend underwater, you spend 3 minutes preparing, kitting up, entering and leaving the boat, sailing, cleaning, briefing and debriefing. But it is worth it!
The diving conditions vary very much, from dark, silty, muddy undeep and 1-fish-per-minute upto clear, 12-meter visibility, fish-galore, 20m-deep, pristine coral reef. It all depends on where you dive. So far, I only dived in the Charlotteville bay and -area, but the tales that are told about Speyside (just the other side of the peninsula) sound marvelous. We will start diving there in a couple of days, when the CoralCay-boat is repaired, of which progress is fully depending on budget, coming from London….
In the bay here, there are (were) corals, but they tend to die, due to poor water management. Runoff contains way too much nutriënt and dispersed particles, causing algal overgrowth and a lack of sunlight respectively. My engineering-mind is considering ways to do some easy, low-cost and -labour run-off-purification. In fact, even our sewerage goes through a packed-bed of spherical silica-particles (aka beach), directly into the sea. Whenever I find the time, I will talk to Pat, a local woman with a heart for the environment (she leads the Tobago environmental-organisation, which reveals the corruption inside the governmental organisation that takes care of land and water management). If possible, I will put up a small-scale and local project to lower the run-off pressures on the coral reef. Let’s first see what is there and who is committed…
To end this contribution, here you have the Schedule for a typical day (Mo-Sa; Su is spare, meaning sleaping until noon):
06.00am: wake-up and breakfast (aka 'breaky'), consisting of porridge (every day, damn Brits!)
06.20am: doing dishes and teeth.
06.30am: kitting up diving-gear, buddy-check.
06.45am: doing chores
07.00am: start lecture (if any, otherwise: loading the boat and/or more chores)
08.00am: entry to the beach and/or boat, all geared up.
08.35am: start diving-descent.
09.20am: end of diving-ascent.
09.40am: arrive at house, start cleaning gear and kit up for next dive.
10.20am: finally spare-time (or chores and/or studying, Sciences in SDP; diving before and after SDP)
12.00am: lunch and washing dishes. The offered foods are vegetarian, surplus meat has to be bought yourself.
12.40pm: buddy-check for dive 2.
13.00pm: entry to the beach and/or boat, all geared up.
13.35pm: start descent.
14.20pm: end of ascent.
14.40pm: arrive at house, start cleaning gear and put it in scuba-shack.
15.00pm: spare-time (or chores and/or studying, Sciences in SDP; diving before and after SDP)
18.00pm: dinner and washing dishes
19.00pm: spare-time (or chores and/or studying, Sciences in SDP; diving before and after SDP)
21-22pm: going to bed.
As you can imagine, this is a very busy and tiring schedule. Therefore, it is good to have a free Sunday-morning like the one today to recover a bit.
The dry season has begun. The last 3 days, we didn't have any rain anymore. That leads to a significant clarification of the waters. After snorkeling today, I noticed that there are coral reefs at less than 20 meters from our compound. On less than 5 meters from the shoreline, I saw some Atlantic spadefish, Spanish Hogfish wrasses, sergeant-major-damselfishes and many more. Yet, the coral has been grown over by invertebrates, due to the bad weather/hurricane of the past months. I'm really hoping it will recover the following months, because snorkelling is excellent recreation!
The most beautiful creature I saw today was our house-reef-turtle. He is gigantic (around 80cm). No visuals yet on the manta ray, but those will come later, I'm sure.
While writing this, the morning dive has ended for the people who went diving. That means you see them leaving the boat (which is still the ‘Workshop’), a rented fishing boat-now-used-for-diving, going to the wash-area. In fact, per minute you spend underwater, you spend 3 minutes preparing, kitting up, entering and leaving the boat, sailing, cleaning, briefing and debriefing. But it is worth it!
The diving conditions vary very much, from dark, silty, muddy undeep and 1-fish-per-minute upto clear, 12-meter visibility, fish-galore, 20m-deep, pristine coral reef. It all depends on where you dive. So far, I only dived in the Charlotteville bay and -area, but the tales that are told about Speyside (just the other side of the peninsula) sound marvelous. We will start diving there in a couple of days, when the CoralCay-boat is repaired, of which progress is fully depending on budget, coming from London….
In the bay here, there are (were) corals, but they tend to die, due to poor water management. Runoff contains way too much nutriënt and dispersed particles, causing algal overgrowth and a lack of sunlight respectively. My engineering-mind is considering ways to do some easy, low-cost and -labour run-off-purification. In fact, even our sewerage goes through a packed-bed of spherical silica-particles (aka beach), directly into the sea. Whenever I find the time, I will talk to Pat, a local woman with a heart for the environment (she leads the Tobago environmental-organisation, which reveals the corruption inside the governmental organisation that takes care of land and water management). If possible, I will put up a small-scale and local project to lower the run-off pressures on the coral reef. Let’s first see what is there and who is committed…
To end this contribution, here you have the Schedule for a typical day (Mo-Sa; Su is spare, meaning sleaping until noon):
06.00am: wake-up and breakfast (aka 'breaky'), consisting of porridge (every day, damn Brits!)
06.20am: doing dishes and teeth.
06.30am: kitting up diving-gear, buddy-check.
06.45am: doing chores
07.00am: start lecture (if any, otherwise: loading the boat and/or more chores)
08.00am: entry to the beach and/or boat, all geared up.
08.35am: start diving-descent.
09.20am: end of diving-ascent.
09.40am: arrive at house, start cleaning gear and kit up for next dive.
10.20am: finally spare-time (or chores and/or studying, Sciences in SDP; diving before and after SDP)
12.00am: lunch and washing dishes. The offered foods are vegetarian, surplus meat has to be bought yourself.
12.40pm: buddy-check for dive 2.
13.00pm: entry to the beach and/or boat, all geared up.
13.35pm: start descent.
14.20pm: end of ascent.
14.40pm: arrive at house, start cleaning gear and put it in scuba-shack.
15.00pm: spare-time (or chores and/or studying, Sciences in SDP; diving before and after SDP)
18.00pm: dinner and washing dishes
19.00pm: spare-time (or chores and/or studying, Sciences in SDP; diving before and after SDP)
21-22pm: going to bed.
As you can imagine, this is a very busy and tiring schedule. Therefore, it is good to have a free Sunday-morning like the one today to recover a bit.
The dry season has begun. The last 3 days, we didn't have any rain anymore. That leads to a significant clarification of the waters. After snorkeling today, I noticed that there are coral reefs at less than 20 meters from our compound. On less than 5 meters from the shoreline, I saw some Atlantic spadefish, Spanish Hogfish wrasses, sergeant-major-damselfishes and many more. Yet, the coral has been grown over by invertebrates, due to the bad weather/hurricane of the past months. I'm really hoping it will recover the following months, because snorkelling is excellent recreation!
The most beautiful creature I saw today was our house-reef-turtle. He is gigantic (around 80cm). No visuals yet on the manta ray, but those will come later, I'm sure.
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09 November 2021 - 16:38
Ravi :
hsthgstjg
