3 - First days in Cap Ternay

October 1^st, 2011

We have finally arrived at the research base at Cap Ternay. It is an old youth center so all of us are sharing rooms. I room with 6 other people and it’s co-ed. Everyone in the room is quite nice, and we don’t have any snorers! The conditions of life are very basic, but we are already used to it. We don’t have anywhere to unpack, so most of our stuff is on our nighttable or still in the luggages. There is only cold water for the showers, but at least we have flushing toilets. It’s a little hard to be so many of us on base, because there are only 2 showers for approximately 25 girls.  Easy to picture the zoo every morning… The best part though is to be right there in the middle of nature. We have the most beautiful beaches in the front and in the back of the house (there are currently juvenile lemon sharks living in the back beach!), and they are only 5 minutes away. Here are a couple photos of the base:

The last couple of days have been pretty intense. We have had orientations for pretty much everything you can do in a tropical country: dive safety, radio use, compressor use, how to collect fruits around the base (guava, mango, pineapple, bananas..), and a couple of lectures on the hazards of the reef. My favorite was learning how to use a machete and to husk coconuts! We got to eat many coconuts and guava we collected during our walk.

The weather has been a little on and off. It can go from being really sunny and dry, to pouring rain and unbearable humidity, followed by stormy winds and cold temperatures. We had our first snorkel with Joe today, one of the staff members. We went in the bay right behind the house and it was pretty awesome. We got to see a couple of sea turtles, spotted eagle-rays, pipefish, snaky eels and thousands of beautiful and colorful fishes that would take me for ever to list on here. The water is really nice, around 28°C at the moment but it will get even warmer as we got more towards the summer here. 

I still cannot believe I am here. I am so thankful for this opportunity and am trying to make every second of it, even if it means being tired or getting some cuts everywhere. When we walked out in the bay to snorkel, I kept turning around and looking at the beautiful granites mountains, the coconut trees and the white beaches surrounding us. So far we’ve had the pretty good life because the staff has given us a couple days to acclimate and we don’t have to do any chores quite yet. However, starting on Monday, we’ll all be split into groups and we will be rotating during the week to do some chores:  grounds (cleaning, fruit walk…), cooking, boat, and compressor.


C.