Hi All!!

Life here in the Philippines is just non stop at the moment!!! After finishing everything in "Science Week" we are all now ready to do the surveys and they have been going well. The actual surveys are very different to the environments that we practiced in but it is nice to be doing them and to be putting all of the training in practice and contributing to the marine volunteer work here! We work in teams of four where we cover 10 meter long sectors where one person is in charge of recording the fish, another the invertebrates, another the coral and the final person records information on the water temperature, current, survey site topology and location after which everything is logged into the database and processed. We try and do as many of the 10 meter sections as possible in one dive but it really does depend on how long it take to complete each one. Sometimes, there is just sand and rocks and hardly any fish or invertebrates at the survey site, so these sections tend to be mapped faster, but on other occasions, there are lots of coral, fish and invertebrates so it takes more time to survey so each time we go down it is different. At the weekend there are no surveys and we get Saturday's to go for a jolly dive were we can pretty much agree to a location to dive and go diving and there is no diving on Sunday as all the local staff go home for the weekend. In the morning dive on the Saturday 21st Nov 2009 we dived at a place called Pintuyan (just 30mins boat ride from our site) and we also managed to get a whale shark guide whilst enquiring about the dive site, who showed us the best spots to dive to see the whale sharks! Unfortunately, we did not see any on this dive but the coral that we saw was amazing!! There was a really strong current that took us all the way along the coral shelf and it was so much fun!! This was the first time that I have been diving with a really strong current taking us along and it was great to experience it! I did not see anything new there, except, all the corals were larger, but after weeks of intensive training and dive courses, it was nice to just relax on a dive and it was one of the best dives that I've had!! I also put on the glittery "Michael Jackson glove" when I was diving and it made the guys I was diving with giggle! Got some cool pictures of this and hopefully I will be able to get them uploaded soon. Some little shiny fish were also curious about the glittery glove too, but I took it off before they came too close. On the Saturday afternoon dive, we went to a different location called Santa Paz, just 10mins boat ride from site and we had another strong current taking us along the coral which was pretty cool too!! On Saturday evening, most of the volunteers signed to go off site to one of the islands opposite to visit the underwater caves and to see the old Coral Cay Conservation site. This is the island where all the local staff live so we just took a ride back on the boat with them when they went home for the weekend. This was the first time a trip like this had been organised by one of the volunteers since my stay here and this was the first time that some of the long staying volunteers (3+ months) had a chance to stay off site. Everyone was really excited about staying at a hotel that had hot running water, flushing toilets, a bed with a soft mattress and food that was a bit more varied than rice and vegetables!! Yep, you have probably guessed it.... I had pizza to eat for dinner!!! And apple pie and ice-cream for dessert!!! Yummy!!! It's amazing how you miss the little things that we all take for granted back at home in the UK. On the Sunday 22nd November we went to the Cagnituan caves. We had a crazy motorbike ride to the caves where we were sitting 2 per bike plus the driver, and the roads, well tracks would be a better way to describe them, were all soaking wet by the rain and it was pretty much a vertical climb in the mud!! We came off the bike once, as is slipped in the mud but it was not going very fast so we were all fine!! Pretty scary stuff but also fun in a weird sort of way!! Out of the 11 of us that went on this trip ours was the only bike that slipped!! I think our driver was more embarrassed than anything else as these guys have been driving the tracks for years. When we got the Cagnituan caves it was over 500 meters of linear cave systems and there were areas where we had to swim to get through!! If we did not have torches, it would have been pitch black!! Basically, it was a bat cave with a river running through it and it was spectacular and so much fun as well as scary!! And I also brought the glittery "Michael Jackson glove" with me so I surprised everyone by putting it on in the caves and shining the torch on it!! Some of the guys laughed so hard they slipped off the rocks they were standing on and into the water!! Got some pretty cool pictures inside these caves and these will be posted on the blog soon!!
We tried to go all the way through the caves but as it had been raining pretty heavily that day, there was a lot of fast moving water inside the caves and it was only safe to go half way and then turn back, but what we saw inside the caves were pretty cool!! We saw three mini waterfalls and a whole host of bats!! At one point we had to turn off all the lights and torches that we brought as the bats were getting a bit agitated. I have to admit, this was pretty exciting and frightening at the same time as I could not see a thing and there were bats flying all around us in the darkness!!
After we were out of the caves there were some waterfalls on the route back and, I know, you have probably guessed it, it was time for waterfall jumping!! This waterfall was not that high, about 5-6 meters but it had a slope to it, so you had to run off the edge and launch yourself off!! It was great fun!! One of the guys even did a running summersault off the top!!! It was unreal!!
After that it was back on the motor bikes and down the muddy dirt tracks back to the bus stop and then into the local town for a bit of food. After that some of us went to the old Coral Cay Conservation site in Ampo. It was pretty big but it looked pretty derelict as it had not been used in
over 3 years. But the beach behind it was great!! At the moment one of the old Coral Cay Science officers was renting the building and renovating it up for a diving business that he was setting up.
And then the last night at the hotel...... We all stocked up on food at dinner and had our final night's sleep on a soft mattress before waking up at 5am the next morning to get on the boat to go back to base.

Monday 23rd November 2009

This weekend was a nice break but it was also good being back at base site.
As soon as we arrived back we all got ready pretty quick to go and do some Mangrove planting at one of the villages around 2.5 hours away. This was the first time that Mangrove planting had been done organised by Coral Cay and the local community and the government were there taking part in this as well which was fantastic!

Mangroves are trees and shrubs that grow in saline coastal habitats in the tropics and subtropics. The saline conditions tolerated by various species range from brackish water, through pure seawater, to water of over twice the salinity of ocean seawater, where the salt has become concentrated by evaporation.
Mangroves protect coastal areas from erosion, storm surge (especially during hurricanes), and tsunamis. The mangrove's massive root system is efficient at dissipating wave energy. Likewise, they slow down tidal water enough that its sediment is deposited as the tide comes in, leaving all except fine particles when the tide ebbs. In this way, mangroves build their own environment. Because of the uniqueness of mangrove ecosystems and the protection against erosion that they provide, they are often a key part is many conservation programs.

After this was completed we performed a puppet show called "Fred the Fish" (all about an anemone fish (like Nemo!) who lost his home due to fishing and was searching for a new home and found it in a Marine Protected Area) for the village children and I also did a few magic tricks for them as well!! They all loved the show and it was great to see all their smiling faces!! They were all really keen to learn about the story and rein act the show with the puppets afterwards! This was great to see!

Tuesday 24th & Wednesday 25th November 2009

Weather was pretty crazy over these two days!! We had torrential rain for most of the night on Monday as well as a lot of the Tuesday!! There were potential land slide concerns but it eased up toward the evening so we did not need to evacuate the building. It was amazing how it turned from being a sunny day yesterday to having torrential rain today!! We even managed to fit in a dive towards late afternoon as the weather subsided a little and visibility was pretty poor at the surface but cleared up as we got deeper.
We also began our final course called "Rescue Diver". This took 2 days and it involved learning all about rescue techniques when in the water. I really enjoyed it and when we went out to practice all the things we learnt for the practical exams on the Wednesday, but the weather was still pretty bad with waves coming out of nowhere and visibility around 30cm!!! But we all persevered on, despite a few injuries, and I have to say we were pretty exhausted after the end of it but we all passed so we are all now Rescue Divers!! Whoo Hoo!!

Thursday 26th November 2009

Weather was sunny... Hooray!! We all had missed the sun!! It was a bit of a sad morning today as we had two people leaving this morning as this was the end of their stay here at Coral Cay. One of the guys was a volunteer (he stayed for 2 months) and one was a member of staff, our science officer (she stayed for 4 months). One of them, the volunteer was off to continue his travels in the Philippines and the science officer was going to Thailand to study for a Masters in Marine Biology. Pretty cool stuff!! They left around 5.45am.
After the breakfast at 6am we went diving and we did some underwater mapping in the morning just outside the site. This was pretty cool as there were around 8 of us mapping at the same time, but it's amazing how fast time flies when you are underwater. And we all just managed to get 2 sections completed before we had to come up.
In the afternoon it was back to surveys, and today we went to Marayag. I was doing the coral side of the survey and there was quite a lot of different corals at the survey site, but they were grouped in small clusters with sand in between. It was a really cool dive and I even managed to get a bit of swimming in at the surface as we were waiting for the other teams to finish.

Friday 27th November 2009

Oh No!! I woke up with an ear ache this morning and after seeing the nurse this she said that my right ear canal was red and swollen but she gave me ear drops and tablets to reduce the swelling and help it recover.... but I am off diving for today!! Boo Hoo!!! But hopefully I will be back diving tomorrow....
You know, I can't believe it is my last week here at Coral Cay in the Philippines!! I leave on Wednesday 2nd December! The time here has gone so fast!!

Well that is all for now. I'll try and get some of the pictures uploaded to the blog as soon as I can so you can see some of the amazing things going on over here.

Hope you all have a great weekend!!

Best wishes,

Prashant