Friday 31st of July
After the torture of the jungle trek at Juara first of all the entire team had to relax again. For that Friday a BBQ and a hat party were scheduled. The guys from ‘Swiss Cottage’ seated up a couple of tables and chairs at the centre of the resort and started to create a great dinner on the BBQ. In the meantime everybody from our group was busy with creating their headwear. Especially the female expedition participants showed their amazing sense for creativity and handwork and constructed – only with natural building material – the most wonderful hats.
Afterwards we made our way to the ‘Tioman Cabana’ – as usual. There Brian showed us once again his unbelievable skills in playing with the fire-poy. Christian tried it out as well, which did not stay completely without consequences…
The next day, we plunged back into surveys and research.
While everybody who had not done this already was working on passing their fish tests, everybody else started to decorate the dive shop by painting it. Mother Nature was the model.
But for the entire week there were many other activities that kept us busy:
One group continued working on the campaign ‘Don’t drop your anchor’, preparing T-shirts with the appropriate motifs on them. Other volunteers created posters and leaflets which shall inform tourists about the interesting marine live in the waters around Tioman along with advice for how to conserve it.
In addition to those activities, Thomas and John made some video editing for the ‘How to be a responsible diver’ video based on the clips taken on previous dives.
For two days a delegation of BVM-volunteers worked together with the Tioman Marine Parks and other dive centres of the island on testing and introducing the Reef Watch programme. The goal of this project is to create and improve a method of data collection for tourists who are interested in getting active for environmental conservation. We tested the survey methods, collected the data and reported back to the Green Fins team with thoughts and suggestions.
At the end of the week, everyone had finished their scientific training. Thus, we could start to practice the surveys, because next week the actual data collection will start…
Friday evening something very special was planned: Swiss Cottage provided our dinner in Tupperware boxes and we made our way on to the dive boat. We motored around to Monkey Bay, a quiet bay north of Tekek where we moored on to a buoy (Don’t drop your anchor!) and had dinner. The ambience was great, the mood high and the food awesome. It was great fun for everybody.
Way too early our excursion found its end. But the night was not over.
Back at Swiss, we lighted up a bonfire on the beach, gathered around it and laughed until the dawn came.
And then – way too fast – another week with BVM was over.
