Turtles!
A week out:
For one week of our expedition we all had to go to the satellite camp on a nearby island known as Curieuse. This island is situated to the North West of Mahe, close to Praslin. It is surrounded by a national marine park run by SCMRT-MPA rangers based on the island. GVI has built a small camp on the island in order for us to work with Marine Park rangers, with the aim of conducting a coral reef monitoring programme. However, a major part of the research undertaken on Curieuse is the in-water juvenile hawksbill turtle census. This involves the catching, tagging and measuring of turtles in the waters surrounding Curieuse. Luckily for me, during the expedition it was also the Hawksbill turtle nesting season, so we had to carry out regular beach patrols to locate and mark nesting sites.
Curieuse was am amazing experience….the house was located right on the beach, and for the week that we were there meat was in abundance!!! The island has no roads so you had to walk from one side of the island to the other in order to undertake your beach patrol but the thrill of actually seeing a turtle nesting was worth the walk, plus the scenery and views were bretahtaking. The two staff members on Curieuse, Rich and Rosie, were passionate about their work and their enthusiasm was infectious. Thank you to both of them for a great time!
There was also the opportunity to apply for an internship if you were completing 10 weeks of the expedition. I didn’t apply but a few expedition members did - Carl, Colin and Fiaz are now presently back working on the next phase. Good luck guys!!!!
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