Grim's Mid-Life Crisis

Most of the team are doing real underwater surveys today, Kyle and I figured we have spent a lot less time underwater than everyone else, due to our larger body mass oxygen requirements and so are just ‘catching up’ today!

An underwater survey generally consists of:

• Ensure you have all your kit, underwater slate, spare pencils, tape measure, camera, surface marker bouy
• Dive down to reef
• Select survey start point & depth
• One person rolls out 50m tape measure against any current, while the second follows behind tucking the tape into coral and rock, avoiding touching anything that will kill you, maim you or cause immense pain!
• Both swim back away from the tape back to the beginning allowing time for the fish to return
• First person follows the length of the tape recording fish species and numbers
• Second person follows and records coral and ground substrate
• First person returns surveying the surrounding area for invertebrates (such as lobster, sea cucumber etc) and damage to the coral
• Second person reels back up the tape avoiding anything that will kill you, maim you or cause immense pain
• Return to the boat
• Return to base, get new air bottles and repeat

Dives complete, Kyle and I caught up on our ‘air economic’ team mates, tomorrow will be the real deal.

The afternoon started with a very crazy animated ‘doll’ movie called Boneca de Atauro: Searching for the Lost Love, and then a 5km tuk tuk visit to the Boneca doll workshop down a dusty bumpy road on timber planks for seats

At the workshop local women make dolls and other products on pedal singer sewing machines. An opportunity for those in our group deprived of retail therapy to support the local economy.

The rest of the afternoon wrapped up with learning how to enter all the data we would be collecting over the next couple of weeks.

As usual dinner, games and an early night. Wind has picked up this afternoon so bed time prayers to the wind god for a calm morning!

Today was the day that we all completed the last of our tests (underwater and computer) and were able to start practice surveys underwater. To get to this point was certainly a more involved and complicated process than I had imagined, but understand for the validity of the data, a necessary process.

Our calmest day on the ocean today and with dives and lunch completed we headed off for our weekly trip to the local English language school AHHA where we brainstormed sports they could think of, talked about equipment and where it could be played. The exposure to sports and sporting opportunities are pretty limited here, so the lists were pretty short but a lot of fun was had when we finished the session with ‘sport charades’

A quick side trip for home-made ice cream on the way back and our final computer tests on impacts and invertebrates to finish off the afternoon.

Top Trumps – Atauro Style

Name: Jamie Graninger
Nickname: James, Bonzo or Lyrics Legend
Origin: USA
Position: Volunteer
Superpower: Teleportation (Really hates traffic) (Already has the superpower of remembering more song lyrics than the rest of us put together)
Weakness: Staying awake during movies, spending money in tourist traps
Atauro Tune: Honey, Drugdealer
Quotes: 8:30 is a perfectly respectable bed time

As usual roosters greeted us with their early morning cacophony, they are quickly forgotten as we exercise on the beach to another picture perfect sunrise. Dive tanks for the day are then lugged from the compressor shed, hoping that the air gods have been kind and your tanks have just a little more air than usual.

Science diving skills training are the theme for the day. First dive, fish sizing underwater to laminated cutouts of fish. Lots of hand signals indicating the size of each. Second dive, buoyancy control exercises which allow us to get very close to the coral without damaging it. Finally an underwater running race without fins in the sand, needless to say I remain unbeaten in underwater running!

Gear cleanup and lunch before some study for the afternoon’s computer tests on fish and benthic identification. Unfortunately the hammock was too comfy so study turned into a nana nap which must have worked because both tests were passed.

Dinner and an evening of new games didn’t last for long, as the lure of sleep became too great after another tiring day.

Yay for Sunday, our day off, some chose to head out for an early morning run before the heat of the day, some of us eased into the day more gently, let our bodies recover from the week and took the opportunity to catch up on some domestic chores, washing clothes, cleaning up the hut and running repairs on some diving kit

After lunch, Rachel, Kyle and I set off to construct the game Finska (Finnish skittles). Turned out easier than thought as we managed to get hold of some bamboo the perfect diameter and a handsaw saw, albeit quite blunt.

Project completed we fell into a lazy afternoon in the shade, telling lies, listening to tunes, drinking Bintang shandies, and playing our new game which was enjoyed by all.

Late in the afternoon we headed out for a snorkel, the sea was calm, the sun was going down, the water refreshing and the fish friendly. A fabulous way to bookend the day.

An early start to get the ferry back to Atauro Island. This particular ferry (the mighty Berlin Nakroma) is the ugliest boat I have ever had the pleasure of travelling on, the one redeeming feature that it was an hour faster than the HMV success.

A very smooth crossing dominated by an Indonesian pseudo Jackie Chan movie playing on the TV with the volume turned up. It must be the genre of choice because every ferry crossing has had the same types of movies playing.

Unpack, lunch and farewells to our field scientist Steph who heads back to the UK. A lazy afternoon of painting post cards, I must admit my attempt was pretty average and will not reach the light of day again.

Once the ferry had left and the market boat traffic dispersed, we all headed out for a snorkel to cool down and practice our fish identification. Highlights were all of us getting ‘chased’ by a sea snake, getting ‘attacked’ by an over-protective anemone fish and the most incredibly coloured anemone benthic, of course the battery on the go pro ran out just before this all happened !

Cards and bananagrams then off to bed, falling asleep to the sound of the ocean and sea breeze filtering through the woven walls of my hut…….great to be back on Atauro!

Just 24 hours in Dili and I am ready to get back to the relative peace of Atauro Island. The wheels of bureaucracy move slowly in the capital of Timor Leste and mindless immigration rules make things unnecessarily difficult. We all arrived at the department of internal affairs to get our visa extensions. Shoulders covered, thighs covered, closed shoes, unfortunately the rules have ‘evolved’ and Kyle and I are turned away because we are wearing shorts (we shall call it ‘The Sexy Clothes’). No trousers with us leads to a quick trip back to the hotel for Kyle to try on Rachel’s pants then off to the shop for me to find some sort of trousers in ‘Malae’ sizing.

Four shops later and 1 pair of fleecy ‘authentic’ Armarni track pants we head back to internal affairs convinced Kyle looks too ridiculous to be admitted and me sweating profusely in the mid-morning sun. We were mistaken and without even a raised eyebrow were granted permission to enter.

Meeting back up with the rest of the team we discover we must wait a couple of hours for the aforementioned wheels to turn, what to do…..I know let’s go and play volleyball in the ever increasing heat in my fleecy pants with the immigration officials and surprisingly large gallery….who is processing our paperwork?

A couple of hours later, many litres of sweat, some new volleyball friends, $35US and one passport lighter (apparently we will get it back in a couple of weeks) we escape in search of some lunch and somewhere for Kyle to lose the floral print pants

The remainder of the day was spent searching for good food, western sanity and supplies to take back to Atauro Island. My contribution a jar of NZ marmite and a 7kg watermelon, luckily, I don’t possess the refined taste buds of my fellow volunteers who are pining for more breakfast variety where I am happy with shit sandwiches and eggs (refer day 17 post)

Our night ended up at happy hour at a rooftop bar which appeared to be an expat enclave, a great Timorese band playing a maori song in Tetun (pokiri kiri ana I think) and a NZ provincial rugby game Auckland vs Waikato on the TV. Weird because I haven’t met anyone else for NZ here.

Random photo below from one of the clapped-out taxis we used today, pretty sure this was the taxi a door panel fell off into my lap when closing the door.

The sunrises here never get old and those that know me will acknowledge that my assortment of sunrise photos is extensive, so here is another to add to the collection!

Underwater fish and benthic underwater survey tests this morning were on most of our minds hoping to tick something off before our visa extension run back to Dili for a few days

My benthic (coral) test went well, just scraping in with 27 correct out of 30. Back to pick up fresh tanks and then the dreaded underwater fish test where I was to go after one of the other volunteers. I started poorly with a wrong answer on the first fish, then all hell broke loose when we saw a 2m plus hammerhead shark about 10m away, incredibly exciting as they are not seen often in this area, then about a minute later we saw a huge napoleon wrasse over 1m long. I think everyone was sucking air from the shark because for the first time on this expedition, I wasn’t the first to get low on air. Abandon test, return to the surface and try not to gloat too much to the others that missed seeing it.

The afternoon was spent cleaning up and packing for a few days in Dili, transport courtesy of HMV Success along with livestock (including loose roosters) vehicles and other passengers.

Top Trumps – Atauro Style

Name: Geetha Selva Raj
Nickname: Geetz or Yolo
Origin: Singapore
Position: Volunteer
Superpower: Ability to fly (cheap travel with no immigration or customs)
Weakness: Addicted to travelling and sushimi
Atauro Tune: I lived, One Republic
Quotes: Yolo
When we don’t sacrifice for what we want, what we want becomes the sacrifice

It’s been a big day and I should be studying fish and coral for tomorrow’s dives, but keen to download the days happenings.

Today is our first cetation (whales and dolphins) survey and the plan was to circumnavigate the entire island which is about 25km long and 9km across looking out for some of the 26 species in these waters. We would stop at the village of Atecru for an event of some description.

An hour of weaving South from Beloi before our first sighting of a large pod of around 25 pilot whales by Ponta Eromauco, we looked to get in the water with them but they decided otherwise and disappeared. From here a series of dolphin pods followed us all the way to Atecru.

It turns out the event at Atecru was in our honor as the first official ‘tourists’ to visit the village. Quite a spectacle, dancing, speeches, traditional games which we were expected to play even though the rules for some were rather vague. Finished with a traditional meal of corn, beans & fish with condiments of palm fruit and tamarind with ash. We then got to sign official documents for “history” and more speeches. Certainly not what we were expecting but they were incredibly welcoming to their village and they want to make it an annual event.

Leaving took a while with many more speeches and goodbyes but we were soon on the boat heading to the Northern end of the Island and back to Beloi. The wind and swell had picked up so looking for whales was abandoned in favour of getting back to our base ASAP.

Too much sun and early survey tests in the morning sent everyone scuttling of to their rooms to study or sleep after dinner.

Lumpy seas made for an exciting ride to the North end of the Island today. It was the furthest we have ventured from our expedition base and the site of future marine surveys. We are starting to do practice underwater tests now for coral and fish and will need to pass these to be able to undertake the surveys. This site has masses of bubble coral and the shipwreck of an old fishing trawler (which I didn’t see). The second dive of the morning was much closer at our home reef and thankfully a little calmer.

Tomorrow is a day off diving to head out around the island on a cetation survey (whales & dolphins), will be great to get a look at the other side of Atauro and hopefully get to see some exciting creatures

We had our weekly outing with the local AHHA language school this afternoon interesting to see the laws of the school, we broke lower law one before we even got there, but my favourite higher law is “no wearing the sexy clothes”

• 

• 

• 

Mima gave us Tetun lessons to wrap up the afternoon then it was back to the coral and fish books for most.

Tetun phrase of the day…Ami ba hadulas Atauro hare ikan tamau balea. (We go around Atauro to see dolphins & blue whale)

Top Trumps – Atauro Style

Name: Jemima Gomez
Nickname: Mima
Origin: Biqueli, Atauro Island
Position: BV Dive Assistant, Tetun language and song teacher
Superpower: Superstrength (to be able to lift all 20 dive tanks at once)
Weakness: Cup Noodles
Atauro Tune: Bless the lord oh my soul
Quotes: “Servisu Makas” (Work hard) “Rame Los” (Having a good time)

Let’s just put is out there, it looks like I had a shit sandwich for breakfast. Was of great amusement to Steph, today’s Atauro Top Trump, so much so that she nearly choked on her breakfast and I nearly choked on my own breakfast because of contagious laughter.

A beautiful day for diving saw us complete both Benthic (Coral) and Fish ID dives this morning in amazing conditions, some of the highlights were a moray eel, huge batfish, scorpion fish and Amos saw a large manta ray leap out of the water, unfortunately the rest of us only saw the splash.

The afternoon slipped away in a lecture on mobile invertebrates, coral diseases and human impacts on the coral such as dynamite fishing, boat and anchor damage. Followed by sorting and categorising for entry into the AMDI (Australian marine debris initiative) database, the plastic cups and bottle caps from the weekends beach clean.

Top Trumps – Atauro Style

Name: Stephanie Rowbottom
Nickname: Sheph (needs a new nickname)
Origin: UK/Australia
Position: BV Field Scientist
Superpower: Able to teleport (already has the wicked laugh superpower)
Weakness: Chocolate, uncontrollable laughter
Atauro Tune: Cat Empire, Steal the Light
Memorable Quotes/Thinly Veiled Threats: “Grim do you want to pass your fish tests?” “That looks suspicious!” “Having a good time”