Birthday on Ascension

-
Tuesday 31st January marked my 24th Birthday 😊 (Definitely the warmest Birthday I’ve had yet!) I spent the morning from 7:30am at work carrying out our usual turtle work – counting nests and tracks at long beach/raking and stranding checks. Abi went and did stranding checks whilst Anna counted tracks and I counted nests. We also had Mel with us to assist with raking so I showed her how to bash/rake the nests. Whilst we were raking we saw a turtle who was still making her way back down to sea after nesting which marked my first birthday turtle. 



We then went back to the office and entered in our data before heading back to the Bungalow to pack our lunch. Abi, Anna and I had all taken the afternoon off so we could enjoy my birthday afternoon, we headed to the AIG beach hut which is about a 10-15 minute walk from our Bungalow and ate our lunch overlooking the beautiful blue sea. 


We then made our way down onto the beach and to the rockpools below Scouts beach hut where we spent about an hour rockpooling, exploring and searching for creatures. We spotted a sea slug and an octopus which were cool finds! After rockpooling we headed back home and grabbed our snorkelling gear. 


We made our way back to long beach as I wanted to snorkel with a turtle, and I splashed about searching for any turtles in the water just off long beach. The visibility wasn’t very good so I didn’t see any around me in the water but I did see one take a breath quite close to me at the surface which was pretty cool. 


 We chilled on the beach for a while before heading back for a game of Mario Party on Abi’s Nintendo Switch until it was time to head to the VC (volcano club on the US base) for some food at their snack bar, and a movie at the free open air cinema they run each Tuesday.


I ate a Veggie cheeseburger with curly fries and they gave us free popcorn when the film started. This week they played See How They Run, which was based around the play Mouse Trap which I really enjoyed. After the film I then headed to long beach with Toby to go turtle watching which was a really lovely way to end a perfect birthday.

Comments

Cheryl said…
An amazing way to mark turning 24! 😘🎉🥳
4 February 2023 at 00:02
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

March 2024 Maldives

-
Image
March has been a very busy month and again has absolutely flown by! This month we released one of our turtles back into the wild! Adam visited me at the beginning of March, and I did lots of snorkelling with hawksbill turtles and black tip reef sharks! 
Read more

First Month in the Maldives as a Marine Biologist at a Sea turtle Rehab centre with Atoll Marine Conservation Centre!

-
Image
I started writing this blog on the first day of the new year. Back at this time last year I had no idea I would be bringing in the new year in the Maldives! But here we are! I've now been on Naifaru for a whole month! How time is already flying! Some highlights of my first month have been meeting and getting to know the turtles, snorkelling with a manta ray and taking samples turtle for an X-ray at the hospital!  I am living on Naifaru, which is the captial Island of the Lhaviyani Atoll (North of Male). It is a local island rather than a private or resort island so it is very conservative and we must have out Knees, shoulders and everything inbetween covered at all times. This mean we swim in leggings and rash vests most of the times, we are allowed to wear swimming costumes and bikinis when we go on excursions to uninhabited islands though.  I left the UK on the 14th December, only two months after leaving Ascension Island. The tra
Read more

January & February 2024 Maldives AMC Blog

-
Image
My second month in the Maldive's has been as busy as my first! My work in the marine centre has been very varied but very similar at the same time. I've become a lot more confident in my role, but still feel like I'm very new and am learning every day. Mornings every day are spent mostly in the centre with the volunteers doing morning centre duties and the afternoons consist of a range of activities with volunteers or daily admin I have to complete. Recently we welcomed Karen to the team as the other Marine Biolgist, she has just joined mid February and I'm looking forward to sharing some of the workload with her!  I've included some of the highlights of the end of January and then February below: On the 19th January we hosted a community beach clean, 60 members of the community joined us included many of the local scouts which was really lovely!  At the end of January we recieved one adult turtle admission. A hawksbill turtle found floatin
Read more