The last week has been pretty full on.  I’ve been keeping my Eco intern Julia busy with clean ups, coral transplants, coral watch and all sorts while Simon has been working the bar, teaching DSD’s, followed by a quick English/Hungarian Open Water course with Hungarian video Steve’s friends before doing our visa run to Penang, Malaysia.

We are currently in Georgetown, Penang on a visa run.  This will be our last visa run before heading home to the UK in May 😀
Our outward journey was long but pleasant, Cuthbert enjoyed the boat, coach, flights and finally the taxi ride to our destination, where we dropped off our bags and went straight out for food.  We were famished.  With Little India just 5 minutes away, Simon has quite a selection of restaurants to choose from which made a nice change.

To Simon’s delight, we’ve hired push bikes again to get around.  It’s much faster than walking everywhere.  The bikes are single gear and have lovely baskets at the front which we can use for our shopping or for Cuthbert when he wants to venture out 😀

Our accommodation is good, the decor is nothing like the last place we stayed but it’s charming. Downstairs we have an outside kitchen, shower & toilet,  simple lounge and dining area and upstairs a large bedroom with outside toilet.

After sorting out our visa’s and doing a little shopping we headed back to the apartment to catch up on mails, work etc.

Last night we Cuthbert to the cinema, to see LOGAN   ..He loved it!  ..especially the coke and popcorn!

It was certain not the most enjoyable visit to the cinema for us though as we moved seats 3 times.  Once due to a mouse jumping on Simon’s arm, not once but a couple of times. At one point Simon passed me the popcorn and I jumped out of my skin, obviously thinking the mouse had landed on me.  The second move was due to the previous mouse deciding Simon was his new best friend and bounced along a the seats towards him and then the third move was due to the idiots behind us, kicking my chair, non stop talking and generally acting like brats  ..so we finally decided to move and ended up under a faulty speaker.  I think by this time, we’d missed so much of the film, we couldn’t be bothered to move for the forth time.  I’d like to watch this movie again but without any interruptions 😀

I had a relaxing morning while Simon, even though still in bed, was working on website and other stuff.  He never stops!  Anyway it was good to be at home, spending time together in a manner of fashion.   Simon left around midday and I pottered on my computer for while.  Hoping it would get slightly cooler so I could take Cuthbert out on his first cycle ride.

I decided to take him on one of my usual rides (not so usual at the moment as I’ve been pretty lazy :-))  Here are a few pictures from our ride.  I must say that he was a good passenger even though he wriggled around a lot.

This last week I’ve been teaching an environmental course Reef Check.  The students learn about the Reef check methodology as well as to identify key indicator fish, invertebrates and substrates.  With this knowledge they can join teams and assist in underwater surveys monitoring coral reefs and take part in surveys worldwide.  It’s a 4 day course and everyone who does it thoroughly enjoys it.

It’s classroom from 9 – 11am every day and then we have some long dives, practicing survey methods and identification and then on the final day, we actually do a Reef Check survey which gets submitted on line.

The girl on the right Julia, is also doing a 2 week, which might end up in a 4 week ECO internship, so after the Reef Check course, I’ve recently been teaching her different methods on how to transplant coral fragments.   We had a practice session on land with dead bits of coral, tying them with wire onto one of my new clam cages and then tightening them with pliers.  It’s pretty tricky and took Julia quite a few goes, but she got there in the end.     That afternoon we went out to our artificial reef, Junkyard to practice underwater with bits of rubble and then when I was satisfied, I gave her 3 small bits of coral to attach which she did very well.

Rebekah & Warren need to go through this additional training as well, which means we can transplant till the cows come home 😀

Simon has been out diving everyday surveying a couple of fishing boats that were sank a few months ago to see if they are safe for other divers. They are quite deep so may be hard for regular scuba divers to access, but Simon enjoyed the exploration of somewhere new.

Then yesterday, Simon joined the Free Divers to go and complete his Advanced Freediver Course. He had started a couple of months ago, but developed a painful sinus squeeze that had halted the course midway. After that, his chest infection… so now he is fighting fit he managed to complete the requirement of diving to 20m deep with 1 breath…