Simple post…

Busy with courses…. BUT…!

Roys wreck dive here…

ECO all the way this week.

The Beach & Dive Site Clean Up was yesterday and either side of that we’ve been building new structures for Junkyard 😀

As so many people find it so difficult to navigate to our site from the buoy line (which is just disgraceful) we thought we’d make it a bit easier for them and construct 3 metal pyramids leading the way to the dive site.  The pyramids have also been designed so that we can transplant corals onto them, which was our main aim 😀  

Earlier this morning, we loaded the structures onto the longtail along with some concrete slabs that we scrounged from the Regal hotel and Si & We motored out to Junkyard to drop them off at Junkyard.  Not wanting to just throw them overboard and destroying anything below, Si put his mask & fins on and checked out below.  I quickly & easily launched the pyramids but I didnt have the strength to move the slabs so Si had to try and move the longtail around on his own, jump back on the longtail and then lift and throw the slabs into the water before drifting back.

Exhausted and mission completed, we headed back to Crystal and waited for the eco volunteers who’s afternoon mission was to correctly place the pyramids and secure them with the concrete slabs and for the girls in the team, we’d attempt to fix some of the broken fixtures and clean some of the coral nurseries.  28 minutes into the dive the weather had turned, rain, big swells and we noticed that our boat (Crystal II) was starting to drag the buoy line which wasnt secured properly yet,  …which was the last thing we wanted.  So we aborted the dive and got all the divers out of the water as quickly as possible so we could unhook from the line and head back to base.   We have planned to go out again tomorrow moring to finish off, perhaps just on the longtail this time but let see what the weather has planned.

Sorry it’s been a few days from our last post.

Lets see, what’s happened?!   Well after our Junkyard assessment dive, a crew of us went out the following afternoon to move the cement blocks which were the final items to be moved back 100 or so meters just south east of the original buoy line.   Whilst Si took all the strong lads with him, I took Sarah, my Underwater Naturalist student for a tour of Junkyard and then we went over to the coral nursaries and gave them a clean.  When I say clean, I mean removing all of the ascidians growing on the base of the corals. As in time they’ll grow up and suffocate the coral.  It’s a long job and think after a couple of 76 minute dives, we’d done an excellent job and the rest of the team had successfully moved all the blocks and for the moment, just laid them on the anchor.  We’ll have to arrange another couple of dives in order to put the sand screws in and secure everything down.

It’s been pretty quiet at Crystal, so not much teaching.  Simons always busy though, working on UK stuff amoungst other things.  We did take a student out on a Ecological Monitoring Program  (EMP) transect line.  Basically going over a 100meter line, 5x5mtrs and recording, fish, invertebrate and what substrate, type and health it’s in with Emma, a Divemaster form Master Divers who’s training to be an instructor for the ‘EMP’  ..she seemed very competent and passionate which was refreshing.

We played RISK the other night, world domination, which went on for hours and in the end around 1.30am we decided to call it a night as Simon went out early in the game and the 3 of us that were left would have been there for days 😀

Yesterday  we pottered around in the morning and then went to the pool and played ball for a few hours. Early evening we headed home, made roast potatoes, sweetcorn which was going to go with a veggie stuffing mix but on opening it, it smelt a bit odd. Only 3 months out of date:-D

A movie and a few glasses of wine later, we retired.

x

Jenny