We have just finished a great week of diving and planning with Debbie! Having her out here in the field has been absolutely fabulous. She was able to help a lot with the finer planning of details once she had the chance to have a look at some of the sites and get a better handle on what is here in Trincomalee. A few of the dives where hampered by bad visibility and some strong currents. And of course as soon as she left they were back to normal! It was such a help having her and it was amazing to have someone with her kind of knowledge and expertise to come out and give up her time to help us, especially straight after the Glasgow Science Festival – the busiest time of her year. We all hope she’s having a wonderful time seeing the rest of Sri Lanka!
Today we had our first visit to a local nursery and primary school! Our marine themed visit included an adaption of “duck, duck, goose” – “fish, fish, whale”. Don’t say university is for nothing. We also brought stacks of pens, crayons, paper, googley eyes and the biggest seller – BUBBLES. Bubbles became the main form of communication in fact, as well as drawing whales and fish and making other fantastic marine creatures with pipe cleaners. The children and staff were so warm and welcoming and greeted us with delicate shell necklaces. There was a slightlanguage barrier and the older children in secondary school were off on study leave – so while we had planned to go into more in depth lesson and activities about ocean plastic and its effects, it didn’t quite work out this time. However we will be visiting them again soon and hopefully get to meet some of the older kids.
We now have a full week of diving ahead of us, and thus far it has been going… swimmingly. We have divers and snorkelers in the water every day, with data collection well underway. Nico and Raudhan are starting their final day of their rescue courses tomorrow which will mean our team now consists of a dive instructor, dive master, five rescue divers and an advanced open water. We could open our own dive school at this rate. The great news is that now Nico and Raudhan can start taking part in work diving and diving data collection! As well as having a great qualification that will undoubtedly make them safer and better divers.
In other news we had our first thunder storm of the trip, which some found more exciting than others. We have had two days off so far which have included some lovely meals out in the local town of Uppuveli, accompanied by a couple of sore heads. However this Friday we are planning a trip to Anuradhapura, it is one of the ancient cities in Sri Lanka established in 4th century BC. Having been in the small town of Nilaveli for the last couple of weeks the group is looking forward to getting out and stretching their legs on some new turf. On the diving front, with new techniques under our belt the team is looking forward to getting data collection fully underway and seeing what we discover.