Grim's Mid-Life Crisis

Fun dive Saturday! We dive at one of my favourite sites first thing this morning with massive fields of foliose hosting swarms of fish, darting in and out of the folds of the coral

For the second dive, the OCD among us decided to pick off the remaining survey at the Rai Keta Tungu reef to save doing it during the week. With 4 of us surveying, we complete it in less than 20 minutes and are able to enjoy the rest of the dive knowing the site was completed.

Dive completed and the sea was so flat we decided a fun photo was required to mark Tina’s last day of diving here.

The afternoon is a scorcher so we escape the heat of the day in the shade doing data entry and I do some washing to see me through the last week. Jobs completed the paints come back out again and a beer run to the kiosk for medicinal and cooling purposes of course!

After a long week and a few games we all filter off to bed at a respectable hour looking forward to another chill day tomorrow.

Top Trumps – Atauro Style

Name: Roxane De Waegh
Nickname: Roxy
Origin: Belgium (but have lived in so many far flung places is really a citizen of the world)
Position: BV Science Coordinator
Superpower: Immune to pressure, physical (ie diving) and life in general. Already have the surepower of self awareness and avoiding the camera, except under water, and posing with random weird guys
Weakness: Subconsciously avoid deep attachment to other people as have spent life moving from one place to the next
Atauro Tune: New Sky, Rufus
Quotes: “Grim, you Crip” “I’m really hot in this wetsuit”
“Whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it. Boldness has genius power and magic in it” Johan Wolfegan von Goethe

We wake up to a humid but very calm morning. Today our mission is to complete the survey of a whole reef in one day, that requires 12, 25m surveys over 2 dives. The reef Watu Aii (Big Rock) we have been to many times and unlikely to have problems with currents.

Dive 1 and the shallower surveys go well but the deeper survey only manages 25m so our second dive we get the most economical on air Roxy, Ellen & Rachel and they manage to get 75m done in one go with the rest of us blowing bubbles from above cheering them on. A great finish to our second to last week of surveys.

Clean and put our gear out to dry then hop on a truck to the village of Biqueli where we are to spend the afternoon.

First stop the Epapa Pana Restaurant for lunch, my fish identification skills now evolved to include char grilled fish, pretty sure a star eyed parrotfish was staring at me from the plate!

A wander around the village follows, including viewing the construction of a new church hall with an ‘interesting’ truss/gutter interface detail for the engineers amongst you.

Cooking demonstrations of seaweed cake, popcorn cooked in sand, and my favourite, tamarind with ash by local ladies is fascinating and a lot of fun.

With peer pressure from Kyle and Rachel I stupidly agree to running the hilly 5km back to Beloi. An absolutely spectacular run with amazing vistas (see new header image) unfortunately one of my knees was not happy about the run and is of great delight to my fellow volunteers as they watch me hobble around (at least an excuse to get out of morning exercise for a few days).

Data entry until late because of our afternoon activities, Saturday and fun dives tomorrow.

Fun over, we are back to surveys and start with our highest priority site, unfortunately also the one with potential strong current issues. Our current check at the surface looks okay and rolling out the tape is fine but a strong current comes from nowhere and causes lots of ‘challenges’ below. We get about half the surveys we wanted when some had to be abandoned, will be back next week!

The afternoon is tinged with sadness as Jamie the baby of our group of volunteers heads back home to sit exams.

Survey data entry and a presentation on the village of Biqueli (which we will visit tomorrow) occupy the afternoon. As the sun disappears behind the hills we heads out to local homes for a meal. Some of us end up at our boat captain Antonio’s house where a beautiful meal and stunted conversation feature (Antonio is a man of very few words but a great smile)

Top Trumps – Atauro Style

Name: Tina Wolff
Nickname: Tinchen
Origin: Kiel, Germany
Position: Volunteer
Superpower: Universal translator
Weakness: Spicy and salty food
Atauro Tune: Lebe deine Träume, Luxuslärm
Quotes: Ummmm Okay….I don’t think so!

After a restless night on my paper thin mattress those of us left outside wake to a thin film of windblown sand through our bedding. Worth the discomfort though for the morning sky and a view of the locals out on an early morning fish.

Breakfast, pack up and load up the boat for a short hop to our dive location. The lip of Adara reef wall is just a few metres below the surface and plunges vertically to an unknown depth (some of the trenches around here are 2,500m deep). The dive is incredible with the wall teeming with aquatic and benthic life and the highlight, 4 massive bumphead parrotfish cruising at the top of the trench as we drifted by in a gentle current.

Dive completed we head South around the bottom of the island looking for dolphins and whales to survey. Half an hour later we find ourselves in a pod of about 1000 mainly pantropical spotted dolphins all keen to play but somehow avoid us getting a hero photo of one 2m in the air

We ‘play’ with the dolphins for half an hour and head on our way only to come across a giant pod of melonhead and pilot whales who seem happy for us to cruise amongst them as they duck and dive in the deep blue.

A very wet cold and rough trip back to Beloi and our base being invaded by a group of Australian teenagers can’t spoil a most incredible day on this amazing island.

Day 32 was our first extended foray into the digital wilderness of the west side of the Island (hence no blog for the last couple of days). The 3-4 hour walk from Beloi to Adara isn’t particularly difficult apart from the heat. Hard to imagine though the locals doing this on a weekly basis to take their loads of goods to the Beloi market, also usually just in jandals (flip flops).

The track climbs directly from Beloi through blue gums to a plateau at around 300m which after passing through a village descends pretty quickly to the west coast of the Island

All of our dive gear is being brought round the Island by our dive boat as we are to dive the Adara wall tomorrow and then complete a cetation (whales & dolphins) survey on the way back tomorrow.

Adara is a small fishing village of only 28 households. Like most of Atauro despite the difficulty of life here, the people seem really happy and are so welcoming of us.

We meet up with our boat, unload our snorkeling gear and settle down for some lunch, thankful for the shade and a cooling sea breeze. The afternoon is consumed with snorkeling across the reef to the massive wall drop off, a wander around the village and organising sleeping arrangements for the night.

Dinner is wolfed down after a long day and we all settle down to watch the famed West coast sunset. We are not dissapointed and I managed to capture a photo or 20 for the ‘collection’. Some of us decide to sleep on the deck for the night to stargaze. A strong cool wind and the threat of falling coconuts sends some back to the protection of the huts but some of us ‘survive’ the night and even joined by a dog looking for some body heat and a comfortable mattress.

I get dragged out of bed to partake in the morning tank workout, that’s the problem being in a hut next to where we exercise on the beach…..you can’t hide if you are knackered from a relaxing weekend!

A new high priority survey site gets our attention this morning with 8 transects (25m surveys) completed we head back for fresh tanks and back out to complete our survey of a close site. Jamie and I have an easy 25m at 8m deep, get it completed quick smart and with lots of air can go for a leisurely tiki tour around the reef

Down deeper, issues with clashing survey areas causes some chaos (Runga Ranga) and we end up one transect short of completing the site.

The wind has dropped off completely so we manage to get our overdue boat wash completed. Incredible how fast algae grows on anything in the sea here in these tropical waters, it takes metal scrapers and scrubbing brushes to get the worst of the algae off the hull.

An afternoon of data entry awaits before packing bags and dive kit for our hike over to the other side of the Island early tomorrow morning.

Another full moon and local fishermen spearing fish underwater at night makes quite a spectacle as we head off to bed

Our day off diving and everyone wants to go diving, well snorkeling because we need to have a day off diving to let the built-up nitrogen escape from our bodies. We swim directly out from our base, unfortunately the current is too strong and we go nowhere. Having had enough of currents this week we swim back to shore and walk the half km or so down the beach to a beautiful piece of coral near the Beloi jetty where we spend the next one and a half hours enjoying the underwater goodness.

Lot’s of lazing around chatting, playing games, domestic chores and throwing a waboba (water ball) around around in the ocean saw the rest of our Sunday off evaporate, back to surveying tomorrow.

We all get an early night under a massive full moon

FUN DIVE DAY WHOOP WHOOP

The crew is super excited about this morning’s dive at a new site about half an hour South of Beloi. The site Briti Rala is a small cove with near vertical sides that plunge deep into the ocean like a funnel.

Most of the dive was at around a depth of 15-20m with heaps of coral, fish and some massive sponges that look like pipes coming out of the wall.

Back for fresh air and a second shallower dive at one of our close reefs where the highlights were a couple of very friendly turtles, a strange looking crocodile fish and as always an amazing variety of coral and fish.

We were all buzzing after the morning’s dive so spent the afternoon having a few bintang shandies, playing Finnish Skittles, singalongs and pretty much chilling out.

Some hilarious new games later in the evening got our artistic juices flowing , quickly turned R18 and I nearly died from laughing, and of course it was the fault of our two trip doctors…go figure!

***NEWSFLASH*** Thanks to fellow volunteer Geetha I now have some post processing software which removes the blue green hue from the underwater photos and the colours now look how we see them when diving (amazing). I will be updating past images progressively over the next few days.

Tank workout to start the day (a good way to sneak in another sunrise photo).

Survey transects are allocated and we load up the boat for a morning of diving. Our first dive at around 18m is at the Haru Uhu Rala reef, unfortunately the current is very strong again and pretty much all the surveys are abandoned or shortened. I use a lot of air in a short amount of time swimming against the current to roll out and retrieve the tape. End up on the surface with less reserve air than is desirable, a good reminder about keeping a closer eye on air when working hard underwater !

Following our first dive debrief our second survey at Haru Ina Tangu reef is along a steep coral slope and is much less stressful and we have a chance to float around after the survey and enjoy the view.

Diving completed, Kyle and my acting skills are required to assist with rescue diver training and take the role of unresponsive divers, both totally nailed it !

Talking about acting a ‘surprise’ evacuation drill is required when Roxy falls ’40m’ from a 4m palm tree and our emergency evacuation processes are tested. Even though a drill, its comforting to know Blue Ventures systems are in place should something serious happen and are regularly tested with the expedition medics. My roll of an annoying bystander once again was worthy of an academy award….two in one day!

The afternoon wrapped up processing the data from the day’s completed surveys and then heading out after the temperature eased to complete our weekly beach trash collection, sort and data entry. A chilled out evening after a tough day, looking forward to our fun dives the next day.

Well the wind gods were not listening and we woke to a strong onshore breeze with very lumpy seas, seagrass washed-up all along the shore and for the first time some clouds over the hills down the spine of Atauro Island, thanks goodness for anti sea sickness medication!

Tanks and gear setup, breakfast and out on our first dive. We are allocated a transect at 14m depth and right away Kyle is flirting with serious pain/death by attempting to tuck the tape under a type of stone called a stonefish.

Wiki description:
Synanceia is a genus of fish of the family Synanceiidae, the stonefishes, whose members are dangerously venomous and even fatal to humans. It is one of the most venomous fish known. They are found in the coastal regions of the Indo-Pacific

He warns me of the stonefish for my invertebrates survey and we complete the transect with no further incident.

The sea conditions pick up for our second dive and we are warned to prepare to abandon the dive if things get any worse. The current is reasonably strong and the wave action is causing movement at our relatively shallow depth of 6.5m which makes staying on course and avoiding running into anything tricky, luckily not much fire coral on this site. Survey complete and return to boat.

Boat clean is postponed due to the weather so the afternoon is spent entering data, having a nana nap in my hammock and getting my dive log up to date, have now completed 27 dives here

Evening routine of dinner, cards and an early night continues, this will be the first full week of diving every day and it is surprising how physically taxing it is.