marinegirl

Just had a fantastic couple of days doing some surveys at Apo Island. Apo is famous (at least in the marine reserves crowd!) as the big success story of marine conservation in the Philippines. The marine sanctuary was established (by Dr Alcala, of my PhD supervisors) in 1982, and, unlike many reserves here, has a great record of enforcement. The reserve has had an amazingly positive impact on the island, increasing the numbers and size of fish (and consequently the income of fishermen) and bringing divers and tourists to the island. Now the barangay captain is a dive instructor at the resort!

I took JJ and Chloe along as my dive buddies / research assistants - they’re from the UK and are volunteering / working their way around the world. At the moment they’re staying in Dumaguete and helping out various people at the marine lab. It was nice for me to hear some English accents for a change (apparently I’m losing mine!) and I think it was nice for them to have a break from sorting sediment samples!

The diving at Apo is always fab, and yesterday it was like turtle soup - we saw seven turtles on one dive! I kept almost swimming into them while I was preoccupied counting my fish, and one let me get so close I could have reached out and touched his flipper quite easily. We had a few communication issues with our boatmen - they couldn’t understand why I needed to do all the dives at the same site, and kept suggesting that we would like to see different sites around the island - but in the end I managed to get everything done that I needed to.

I only needed to do two dives each day, which left plenty of time for pigging out on yummy food at the resort, and exploring the island. It’s a lovely place to walk around and chat to people - everyone is really friendly and wants to stop and chat. We ended up talking to a lady about her pigs - they live by the edge of the lagoon, and apparently their pens got flooded last week in the typhoon, but its ok because they can swim. They’re all going to be killed for the fiesta on April 4. The kids have a whole olympics of games you can play with a pair of flipflops and loved posing for photos and then laughing at each other on the screens of our digital cameras. They surrounded us on the beach at sunset laughing and calling us ‘alien’. And I thought I was getting a tan! We also fell victim to the infamous ‘T-shirt ladies’ who insisted I try on t-shirt after t-shirt until we found one in the right size, colour and design.

We stayed at Liberty’s resort, in the cheapest rooms, which personally I think are the nicest! They have nipa walls and bamboo beds with mosquito nets, and open onto little balconies which have an amazing view of the sunset. There’s no running water on the island, and the only electricity is from a generator which os on for a few hours a day, so at night it’s beautifully dark and quiet. All of us wished we could afford to stay another few nights (or weeks!) and didn’t want to go back to the city. We delayed out return as long as possible, and booked a boat back to Malatapay at 3pm. By this time the wind had really picked up, and what is usually a half hour relaxing boat trip became an hour-long white water ride! The waves were considerably bigger than our little pump boat, but it was great fun. I finished up the strenuous work day with an hours massage at Urban Nirvana, mmmmmmm.

I’ve just got back from Siquijor, where I spent a few days helping out with the marine reserve monitoring program. The monitoring team was made up of staff from CCEF (Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation) and BFAR (Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources), local guys who have previously been trained in survey techniques, some enthusiastic Peace Corps volunteers and myself. The plan was to conduct biophysical surveys (count fish) at each of the marine reserves on the island. However, progress (already on ‘island time’) was hampered by the return of Lando, which meant we could only dive at the most sheltered sites. Most of our time was spent brainstorming how to make vital pieces of survey equipment left in Cebu from things which can be purchased on a small island, driving around the island (which is gorgeous) picking up dive gear and people from various places, and stopping for ’snacks’ or lunch.

I stayed at the BFAR office (they have a couple of rooms upstairs for staff / guests) with the guys from CCEF and JR, who is one half of the Siquijor Fisheries staff. The guys were all really friendly, and full of stories about the trials of fisheries management and coastal enforcement, but although they tried to translate the conversation as much as possible I was lost a lot of the time. I certainly have a new appreciation of being on the wrong side of the language barrier, after living with lots of Frenchies in Oz! When the storm came through the power was out right across the island and we were all scrambling around trying to find matches and candles in the dark. Two guys had gone into town on a motorbike to get dinner and came back nearly drowned!

Although it was interesting to see how the MPA monitoring works, that wasn’t my purpose for the trip. I’m hoping to do some research on the municipal fisheries of Siquijor for my PhD, so my main reason for going along was to network with local dignitaries, fisheries officers, and NGO staff who will (hopefully!) be able to help me organise some focus groups with the fishers there. In that respect the trip was definitely a success - I’ve made several contacts who I think will be really helpful when I go back to work there, and have a plan of action for what I need to do, although the thought of trying to get groups of fishers together to give the right answers to the questions I need to ask in a language I don’t understand is still pretty daunting! It was great to see more of the island too (I was there for a couple of days back in August), it’s a beautiful place with really friendly people, and I can’t wait to go back again in January to start my work there.

I finally have a proper place to live! I’m officially an ex-ex-pat!Until now I’ve been staying at Harold’s Tourist Mansion - the back of the staff t-shirts reads: “Any cheaper and we would be sluts” ! It’s actually not as bad as it sounds, but I’ve been itching to move into a place where I can spread out and have a kitchen to cook in - it gets pretty tiring going out to eat every night, especially after a long day.

I seem to spend far too much of my life searching for houses. I found a lot of places that “accept lady lodgers”, but sadly no charming and affordable houses for rent. After looking at a few places, and ruling out a few others on location (one was next to the cock pit!), I eventually settled on an apartment on Rovira Drive. Well, two apartments. My landlord had a one bedroom place available, but on the 14th December a Korean girl in one of his two bedroom places wants to switch to the smaller one. So I’m in the one bedroom until December 14th, then in the two bedroom one! Luckily both apartments are off the same courtyard, so it won’t be too much hassle.

It’s more expensive than I would have liked, and less charming (I liked the idea of a nice little nipa hut by the beach…) but it’s really close to the marine lab, has a great kitchen (with an oven, which apparently is unheard of for a rental place in Duamguete, most just have stoves) and a night guard. Actually the apartment I’m in for the first few weeks is probably nicer than the one I’ll end up in, with wooden flooring from trees grown in my landlords orchard 18 years ago!

I’ll try and get some photos taken soon.

On Tuesday I met with the Mayor of Dauin to ask permission to conduct survey dives in his municipality. Renclar describes the Hon. Rodrigo A. Alanano as a ‘force of nature’ and he’s not wrong (although others may describe Renclar as a force of nature…) - man this guy can talk! I didn’t have to say anything about my project or what I plan to do at all, just listen and nod and laugh in all the right places as the Mayor talked about his commitment to protecting the municipal waters, how he will prosecute violators even if they are poor or related to him or important, how Dauin is a ‘Clean and Green’ and ‘Child Friendly’ municipality, how there are some fish which hide in the sand so you can only see their eyes, and, most importantly, how he wants me to find an English girl called Zoe Sheridan, who did some work in Masaplod reserve a few years back and never gave him the results. Zoe, if you’re out there, call the Mayor of Dauin.

Now I have the approval of the Mayor, I can get started with some surveys. I did three dives at a marine reserve in Dauin (Poblacion 1) yesterday. I like diving at Poblacion 1, there’s a tank to rinse your gear in and the Bantay Dagat (volunteer fisheries patrol guy) reminds me a bit of the Dalai Lama. At first I was somewhat panicked by the multitude of vaguely familiar fishes (I picked practically the most diverse site to start with, oops!), but I think I remember most of their names now. Two dives at another reserve, Masaplod Norte, this morning. Another beautiful site with a big school of jacks, but a strong current so I called it a day after two dives to spend the afternoon with coffee and banana cake. Hopefully I’ll get to take the camera out soon, so I can bore you with rubbish photos of blurry fish!

There were two check-in staff at Townsville International (can anyone tell me why it’s called that? There are no international flights!!) - an improbably cheerful man with very white teeth, and a grumpy, sour-faced woman. Sadly, I got the latter, and had to cough up my excess baggage karma to the tune of $375 (so far, I have managed to sneak my way around the world on Qantas with ridiculously heavy bags and never pay a penny / cent / peso).I have forgotten stupid things.

I love the fact that Apple power adaptors come with interchangeable plug bits, so you don’t need to use clunky adaptors. These are no use when you leave them at home.

I remember when I first started flying, people used to clap when the plane landed. No-one does this anymore, which is a good thing.

Filipinos love Mr Bean. I had a faint recollection of this from a ferry trip last time round, but was unprepared for the raucous hilarity that accompanied the last hour or so of the flight.

By the end of 2007, I will have taken around 18 flights, flying approximately 41,900km! Unfortunately, this means I will have been responsible for producing 5.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide. I hereby pledge to offset this with the help of the CarbonNeutral Company. I suggest you all do the same.