March 2024 Maldives

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! 

Here are some of the highlights of my March in the Maldives. 

On the 1st March I was just at the end of giving a turtle presentation to our volunteers when some women came to the centre and asked if any of us would be free to be taken on a Tour by their sons who are part of the local scout group. They were doing their tour guide badge! We said yes (Me and Volunteers David and Lina) and met them at the Harbour to begin our tour. First we had to fill out their notebooks with information of where we were from, they then told us about how you can get to the island by boat and by plane, how to get to the airport and how far away it is. Each scout paired with one of us. We were then taken to the largest mosque on the island, my scout tour guide told me about the mosque and we took a photo in front of it for his mum. He then took me to a local Jugo shop (Jugo is a drink like a Milkshake, Juice, Bubble tea combination - which is very popular here), we ordered some Jugo and then went to our next stop before the drinks were ready. I wasn't sure what to order so I asked the Scout to recommend his favourite which was chocolate so thats what I ordered. He then took me to the Hospital to show me around reception and the Koi pond at the front, and then took me across to the school and showed me around the grounds. At each place he told me some information about the location and we took a picture in front of each place. At the end I was asked to write a review in his book and then we went back to the Jugo place to drink our drinks. It was a very unexpected and spontaneous wholesome afternoon! 

After just over two and a half months in our care, Kamana was returned back into the ocean where she belongs! Kamana arrived at our centre on the 15th of December 2023, after she was found floating near Hurawalhi Resort. She had visible entanglement wounds and was unfortunately unable to dive. She refused to eat for over a month, and would often stay in one corner of her tank. Her initial treatment included fluid therapy to treat her dehydration, and after an X-Ray showed she did not have any abnormal pockets of air, our vet began targeted external weight therapy with her and successfully tackled her bouyancy syndrome. During Kamana’s time at our centre our team introduced different enrichment methods to encourage her to dive, with her favourite being palm leaf enrichment, which she would often hide under and scratch her carapace on. Once she started to improve there was no stopping her! Kamana had been off medical therapy for a few weeks before spending two weeks in our Floating Marine Centre (FMC), diving, swimming in natural ocean currents and resting over 5 metres deep. After being given the all clear from our vet, the decision to release her as soon as possible was made, and she was released from the FMC on the 4th of March! Our volunteers joined on our boat to give Kamana space and reduce levels of stress during the move. One of our team then carried her from the FMC to the edge and released her from the platform into the sea whilst two of our staff were snorkelling at a distance to capture the moment she was released into the ocean. You can check out her release video on our instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4V4uPKJIbd/ 

Adam also vsited me between the 2nd March and the 10th March, we did lots of fun things whilst he was here. He helped out with centre duties in the morning and then we did a few dives (one on our house reef) one coral gardening dive and one dive at kuredu Caves where we saw lots of turtles, a nurse shark and eagle rays. We ate out a few evenings at some of the local resturants so it was nice to explore around a bit more and we went to an uninhabited island one afternoon as well. 

After releasing Kamana, on the 4th March Dua had her PADI Rescue scenario for her rescue diver qualification. I was not the victim this time (Gabi our vet was) but I was acting as the dive buddy of the missing diver so I had to come from the water and announce I had lost my dive buddy. However we did a twist for Dua and had a second victim, we had Amy playing a diver who had been stung by a jellyfish first so she had to deal with that and then I mentioned there was three of us when we went in and our third person should be out soon and then the rest of the scenario carried on. It was a really funny scenario again. We then said a sad farewell to Dua (our Marine Biologist Assistant) on the 7th March. She has gone to another Atoll to be a Marine Intern for another organisation which I think is so great for her, but I am sad she has left the centre, she was really great. 

We also held another community beach clean this month. On the 8th March we got up early and arrived at the centre for 7:30am. We had almost 60 people join the event again (mostly scouts again) (Adam also joined). 

After the beach clean whilst we were having breakfast Kanma asked if we wanted to see Manta's because they had been spotted near the island so we all ran off the grab our snorkelling gear and headed to the Harbour quickly. I was so excited because the one thing Adam was dying to see whilst he was visiting was Manta Rays and he did! We saw three there and Karen managed to get some ID shots of two of them which she sent to Manta Trust for Identification. One of them was identified as a previously seen Manta which had a name and the other one was a first time identification so we got to name it! She put it to a vote and I suggested Ralhu (meaning ocean wave in Dhivehi) which was the name which was finally chosen! 

On the 9th March we went for an excursion snorkelling on Komandoo reef and it might have been my favourite excursion I've been on yet. The reef was so pretty and we saw 7 hawksbill turtles and so many other cool things. I had the best time! We were in the water for over 2 hours and I never wanted to get out! 

On the 11th March Ramadan began, it meant we were moved from our usual breakfast, lunch and dinner spot outside to an indoors room so we could still eat at normal times and also meant we wouldn't drink our waterbottles in public as well. Meal times moved slightly later as the chef would start work later due to fasting and staying up later. Otherwise work has been the same for us. Things are just moving even slower in terms of being able to get things down. It has also meant my school sessions have stopped for now as the students have a much shorter school day. 

On the 14th I went to Six Senses Kanuhura (a resort in Lhaviyani) to sign a contract for putting an AMC Sea Turtle Biologist at their resort. We have a local Maldivian hired for the postion. On the same day our new Marine Biologist Dana arrived, she is going to be working at Amilla Maldives (a resort in Baa Atoll) as a Marine Biologist. It was nice to get off the island for an afternoon and interesting to see another resort. I think I preferred Amilla to Kanuhura though, Amilla was more green. 

At the end of March we also finally got our new X-ray machine working! Gabi and I have started taking X-Rays of the turtles from different angles(above) and then one of the more important angles is head on so we can see their lungs and whether there are any air bubbles causing bouyancy syndrome. This can allow our vet to know if she needs to perform a Coelomocentesis (removing air). 

I had another really nice excursion day on the 23rd March on an uninhabited island called Dhidhdoo. I'd never been to this island before, it was beautiful but it was covered in so much rubbish and litter which was heartbreaking to see. Gabi, Amy and I walked all the way round the whole island, mostly in the water and a little on the beach, we had a really nice relaxing day and spent lots of time in a pool of seawater. 

On the 28th March we dropped Dana off at Amilla Maldives. Gabi, Amy, Karen and I went with Kanma and his freinds to local island Kamandoo for 'Iftar' which is when they break their fast in the evenings during Ramadan. It was really nice to see another local island. It was much cleaner than Naifaru and smaller as well. When we first arrived we could immediately see a large hotel on the harbour which looked very out of place, but made it clear it is a different kind of local island to Naifaru. We were left to explore for a while as Iftar wasn't for around 2 hours. Kanma and his friends went to Pray at the mosque and the rest of us went for a walk to explore. We accidently found a tourist bikini beach which we weren't expecting, which even had a pole dancing area at one side which was very suprising to see on a local island. They did have signs up reminding tourists that they can't wear their bikinis outside of the beach area. The island was greener than Naifaru and less rubbish lying around. We still had a while to wait until food so we went to a small restuarant and got fresh Mango juice which was soooo yummy. We then met back up with Kanma and the guys ready for a traditional Maldivian meal. I had lots of Roshi and these fried triangles which look like mini samosas but they had potato inside and were very yummy. We sat outside at a restuarant near the harbour. Just as we were finishing eating suddently a huge storm started! It began raining soooo hard and thundering really loudly so we ran inside until the worst of it passed. It was a really lovely evening though and we headed back to Naifaru by around 8pm.