Sorry for the delay in updating - I started my dissertation a few days ago and have been hugely busy from 7am well into each evening. I passed the coral reef ecology course with a final mark of 93%. I made a few stupid mistakes which cost me an extra 5% or so but I was still fairly happy.

My dissertation involves two dives a day which have been fun but tiring. My two dive sites are Pak Kasims and Sampela. Pak Kasims is great - the visibility and diversity there are both amazing. Sampela on the other hand is somewhat different. Unlike most of Wakatobi, up until recently the reef was a designated fishing area (known as a ‘take zone’) so the biodiversity has been severely impacted through progressive use of destructive fishing techniques such as blast fishing, cyanide fishing and fish fences - google them if at all interested. The Sampela inhabitants also dump their waste straight into the sea, which includes copious amounts of raw sewage. From the local’s point of view, they throw waste into the sea, the tide takes it out, the waste is gone, problem solved.The fact that 12 hours later they fail to recognise the same waste washing back ashore goes straight over their heads. A healthy reef also means a healthy reef ecosystem and the one at Sampela is what can only be described as terminally ill. Most of the corals are dead, the rest are all diseased, large algal and seaweed blooms block out surface sunlight, and the water is murky brown from the heavenly mixture of human and fish faeces. From a diving point of view, this evidently has a big influence on visibility. At Pak Kasims on a good day I can see for 30-40m. On a really good day at Sampela I might get 5m if I’m lucky - however why the staff here want to be able to look through 30-40m of shitty water instead of 5 is another question.... Obviously the warm waters and ‘nutrient rich’ environment also makes for a perfect breeding ground for some nasty bacteria, of which there are considerably elevated levels. Inevitably, last week I had a mild but nonetheless painful ear infection which cleared up relatively quickly after I took a couple of days out of the water, ignoring the Norwegian paramedic’s bizarre advice to ‘yust keep diefing ant see how bad it getsch yah?’.

On a plus point, I have finally acclimatised to the humidity and temperature! No longer do I attempt to go to sleep ignoring the fact that I’m drenched in my own un-evaporating sweat! No longer do I pour forth fountains of perspiration from my face into my food and back into my face again as I’m eating meals in the wind-less dining hall! No longer do I feel like I’m a guinea-pig in a drug trial for the world’s most upsettingly violent diaphoretic! In fact today I even wore long sleeves!!

Food here is getting a little tiresome. There is a weekly rotation which keeps things moderately interesting but the repetitiveness of tuna every day almost makes me cry into my already sweaty rice. Today some friends and I booked a meal for next Tuesday at a local’s house for our first taste of non-tuna-protein in 3 weeks in the form of chicken and duck. And Dad if you’re reading this and thinking of presenting me with a tuna sandwich upon collecting me from Gatwick in 3 weeks then don’t - I’ll be bringing back an Indonesian machete, and they’re bloody sharp. I don’t mean to sound like I’m moaning though. It would of course be relatively boring if all I talked about was the glorious sunshine, the amazingly friendly and heartfelt locals, the blindingly white beaches, the warm ocean waters, and the sound of cicadas and crashing waves sending me to (currently dry) sleep every evening. I’ll save all of that ho-hum stuff for when I’m back :P

Will hopefully keep on top of updates and try and find the patience to upload photos of the wobbly rocks that my wooden hut is precariously resting on, directly adjacent to an enormously wide and deep coral hole. I kid you not.

PS: One of the locals, Piola, has given me the nickname 'berondong' which is literally translated as 'a young male prostitute who only sleeps with women over 60'. Lovely.

Coral Reef Ecology

Last week’s PADI course finished on Wednesday, with Thursday being ‘de-gas day’ where everyone gets their day off. Wednesday night the staff moved the dining tables outside where we all ate dinner, which had a great atmosphere. After dinner we went to sit on one of the beach cabanas, chatted, and drank Bintang (beer brewed in Wakatobi - v. nice). After a while we heard of a gathering occurring further down the beach so we walked until we discovered a small bonfire next to a local tent-bar selling anguur, which is traditional Indonesian wine (don’t worry M&D this isn’t the illegal stuff - that’s arak). We sat, talked, drank, and looked at the stars through the clearest sky I’ve ever seen until the tide came in, forcing us back to base camp where I then went to bed. It was a lovely evening. De-gas day came and brought with it scorching temperatures. We went exploring, and then to a picturesque little beach to sunbathe called Bounty Bay. I applied suncream liberally but my shoulders and neck still got a little burnt. After lunch I bought a hammock and set it up on our porch - it was so comfy I fell asleep whilst reading.

On Friday we had two orientation dives for our upcoming CRE (Coral Reef Ecology) course. We have to pass the course with an average of over 80% to get permission to survey the reef for our dissertations so it’s reasonably important. We started the course on Saturday, with two lectures (algae and invertebrates) and two dives.

Today we had two more lectures (coral reef introduction and coral reef morphology), a dive and a snorkel. When snorkelling, you see a substantially larger amount of species than when diving because of the ease of communication. When diving at 18m if you see something of interest you have to first get your partner’s attention, then make an effectively communicative hand signal so they understand what you’re about to show them, then you have to point to the species in question, which is somewhat harder than it sounds due to the huge amount of other species in the area of interest. When snorkelling however, you can describe exactly where and what you’re looking at, making species spotting a lot easier. Whilst I was snorkelling in the shallows a banded sea krait (extremely poisonous bite = death) swam about half a foot away from me, popped up to the surface for air, then swam back down to the deep. My heart rate increased substantially after this!

It’s 9.30pm, I have just come out of my first CRE exam on algae and invertebrates and I passed with 93% so I treated myself to a pack of Oreos and I am now off to bed. Hope everyone back home is OK. Apologies if I’m slow replying to emails - time is fairly tight here so I only get brief snatches online! Will update in a couple of days.

PS: Hope France was good Mum and Dad!