Lorraine’s work experience travel log

Today I got up at 5:30am to meet Kester outside the house for 6am. We walked to Rose Hill to catch a bus to St Georges. We then got on another one to Grand Anse beach, Kester got off a stop before me as he’s working at one of the construction sites of a new hotel and so I got off at the beach and walked to eco dives shop on grand Anse. It was about 8am when I got there which was an hour early but I filled out my paperwork and got my kit sorted early. Kirsten and her friend Anna met me there at half 8. Everyone liked my wetsuit :) the three of us were joined by a family of 5. We all carried out kit to the eco dive boat at the waters edge Called Nutmeg Princess. Once we were all on board we set up our kit and headed to the first dive site Tyrell bay, Boss reef. The boat was a nice size with a flat bottom and empty corners for us to enter the water from by a giant stride. When we were given the signal we all entered the water in turn. Anna wasn’t diving so she stayed on the boat. The Tyre

Yesterday Tom, Steph, Kate, Marina and I headed to Levera at 5:45 for morning survey and excavation. We excavated 10 nests in total and couldn’t find 3. I couldn’t find my first nest and so moved onto a second one but marina kept caving it in so I gave up and went back to my first and managed to finally find it. It was a really good excavation, even though it took ages to find the nests we found some really successful nests with over 40 hatched shells which was really nice to see. After excavation we headed back to the house and I cleaned and then Steph, Kate and I went to Sateurs to do the weekly food shop. After that Tom, Marina and I went back to Levera for beach profiling. We also took a hatchling we had found in the morning and released it. Steph cooked a chow mein noodle soup for dinner which was yum and I read a little before bed.

Today at 5:45am Steph and I headed out on morning survey at Levera. We checked the beach for tracks, no adults but we found two hatched nests and one hatchling to take back for release which was done before dinner. We measured the distances to the two nests we found and raked over the tracks. We headed back to the house and had breakfast and then Tom and Marina headed to Sateurs and Steph and I headed to Bathway for a beach day. We spent nearly 5 hours at the beach just chatting, whilst in the sea and on the sand. We both took our books but didn’t read anything we were talking so much! We also both got a nice cold Ting from the beach huts and I also go some chips for lunch. We headed back at about 3pm. It was my turn to cook dinner with Marina helping me. I made egg fried rice, curried potatoes and carrots and soy fried veg. It went down very well, Tom and Steph particularly liked the egg fried rice 🙂. After dinner Marina and I washed up and tidied the kitchen and I might read a

Yesterday morning I read and finished my book, starting the next one. I also cleaned the house as my job for the day. In the afternoon Steph, Marina, Kate, Dan and I went to Levera for beach excavation. We measured and marked 6 nests between markers K2 and L and found 5 out of 6 when digging. The beach was really buggy, loads of little flies surrounding us in clouds which wasn’t very pleasant. It was also a rather stinky excavation as most are. Quite a few tourists were on the beach as well, asking what we were doing, how we knew where the nests were and taking photos of us digging. When we returned to the house I continued cleaning and read some more before dinner. Tom cooked Garlic bread knots and stuffed Aubergine which was very yummy. After dinner I helped Tom was and Dry before reading before bed.

Early yesterday morning Kirsten, Rachael, Helen and Grace headed to the airport. Grace and Rachael heading home and Helen going to a sister diving project in Carriacou And Kirsten staying in St George for a week with a friend. I’m hoping to go diving with Kirsten in the week. That just leaves marina and I as the only volunteers for the next three weeks. We had a chilled morning and then the four of us did a deep clean on the house, sweeping, mopping and wiping everything down. I had a relaxed afternoon reading. Kate Came over in the evening with Dan who has a family trust which donates money to the project. He provides some of the funding to allow the in water surveys etc. They both joined us for dinner, which Steph made. She made a pumpkin macaroni cheese bake with salad which was yummy. I never knew how much I liked pumpkin before I came here, tis very tasty. We were planning on having a movie night but everyone was too tired so we all headed to bead.

On Friday  I had a chilled day at the house. I read and wrote up some data in my notebook. In the evening Praggi, Steve, Carter and Sharka came over and Kate also picked up Benson, Zoe and some other locals joined us for a house cookout. Praggi and and the others cooked the chicken in BBQ and Beer marinade on the barbecue. Tom made a really good pasta salad and the locals made rice and lentils as well. We had a lot of fun dancing and eating all evening.  It was nice to have everyone here for the evening all volunteers as well instead of half on Night Survey. Tom and Steph asked me to write a meet the team post for Facebook that Steph will post later in the week and I found a few posts I feature in :)

Yesterday Rachael, Kirsten and I went on an adventure to Mt Carmel waterfalls. I had Avocado on toast for breakfast and We left the house at 10am and walked to Rose Hill to catch the bus to Grenville. We stopped off there for a little while and bought some snack stocks before catching another bus to the waterfalls which was about a 5 minute bus ride away. Normally the bus driver tells us where to get off, noting we are white people and clearly tourists but I think they forgot about us this time so we went about 2 minutes past but the end of the bus route wasn’t far at all and they just stopped at the waterfall stop on the way back for us. The walk to the falls was about 10 minutes through beautiful green forest, it was almost like a forest walk at home just with even more luscious green plants. When we made it to the main water fall there were a few American tourists there. It was so hot we were glad to change to our swimming costumes and go for a swim at the bottom of the waterfall.