Uppingham School

07.07.12:  Nick de Wet

Landed safely. Took 18 hours to get to Kuala Lumpur. Staying in the PODs Backpackers hostel tonight in downtown KL. Just been out for curried noodles and iced coffee. Off on a nine hour coach rode to Kuala Besut tomorrow before getting a water taxi over to the dive centre on the islands. 10.00pm here at the moment - 30 deg heat!

10.07.12:  Nick de Wet

We made the nine hour journey up through central Malaysia to the north east coastal town of Kuala Besut in style in a luxury Malay-Style double-decker coach. We crossed over to Perhentian Besar island by high-speed water taxi and have spent the first two days learning about turtles and jungle life. 32 degrees in the day, 24 degrees at night, clear blue warm water - we have snorkelled quite a lot so far and enjoyed acclimatizing. We have done some work too - currently it involves patrolling the beach in shifts between 8pm and 8am to discover turtles that come in to lay eggs and occasionally to release baby turtles! We start our open water dive courses in a couple of days ...

Photograph of the beach next to our resort (which is tucked away behind the trees).

11.07.12:  Nicola Hunter

 We released 70 turtle hatchlings last night. The team constructed a sand and bamboo runway and at 9pm the turtles made their way one by one into the South China Sea - a wonderful sight! 

Here are a few of the hatchlings earlier in the day. (right) 

The team learn about hatchling management. (left)

12.07.12:  Nicola Hunter

After two disappointing nights of turtle patrol we were feeling like tonight would be our night. We were on patrol from 8.30pm-3am. On our first walk along the beach we found turtle tracks and there in the tree line was a large turtle. Unfortunately after 30 minutes of listening to her digging something was not to her liking and she went back down the beach and into the sea. Needless to say we were very disappointed. After a 20 minute break we returned to the beach to continue our patrol. As we approached a similar spot on the beach we heard something rustling in the tree line. There was another turtle!

She was already well dug in to her nest and was beginning to dig out the egg chamber with her back flippers. It soon became clear that there was something in her way. Upon closer inspection some rope was found buried in the sand and although it was removed the turtle was not happy with her site so she moved on. We held our breath all hoping she would not decide to abandon the beach. She moved along the tree line and thankfully settled in a safe spot.

To cut a long story short we sat on the beach and watched by red light as she spent almost four hours digging, laying her eggs and then covering them up. It was the most amazing experience and we feel privileged to have been able to observe and play our part. After the turtle left the nest and headed out to sea we then set about digging up the eggs to take to the hatchery for safe incubation. There were a total of 97 eggs!

We hope that our turtle will have had a positive experience and will return in 2 years time to lay her next eggs.

14.07.12:  Nicola Hunter

The last two days have been spent working towards our advanced open water dive course. There are five dives and we have done the following:

Peak performance buoyancy
Navigation
Deep dive (we went to 24m)
Wreck dive (we explored Sugar Wreck)
Night dive

Half of the group did the night dive this evening and have completed the course. The others will finish theirs tomorrow.

We have come a long way from our first pool dive back in January!

17.07.12: Nicola Hunter

We spent our final day preparing for a feast and an afternoon of beach games. The team made burgers, salads and cheesecake - and  realised how hot it is in the kitchen here!

The beach games started with a sand sculpture competition. Frisbee and beach volleyball were next.

27.07.12: Nicola Hunter 

Here is the Rungus longhouse that was our home for three nights last week. We worked in the heat at the MORF (metre of rain forest) project clearing the land, weeding and replanting saplings that we had collected from the forest. With no electricity and water pumped over from the field opposite (we had to purify it to drink) we certainly had an interesting experience!

27.07.12: Nicola Hunter

Here is the nursery that we created. Two days earlier the area had been coverered in thick 6ft high vegetation. Seriously hard work in the tropical heat!