The Underwater World - Weeks 2 & 3

February 19, 2005

The next fortnight was, misleadingly named, Science Week and, with a few hangovers being nursed, we began on Sunday desperately trying to remember 23 species of algae, 35 species of hard coral, 66 invertebrates and 132 fish.
We also learned that starfish are in fact just cute squishy things with lots of legs and aren't dangerous. The Linkia laevigata on the dangerous animals list was just a cruel, but funny, joke.
Science week also marked my first sighting of "mega-fauna." I saw two White Tip Reef Sharks whilst I was doing a dive to test my (lack of) knowledge of fish.
After some how managing to remember all that aquatic life we then had to learn the skills we needed to survey the reef. Unfortunately I was out of the water again so missed most of this due to what is affectionately know at Raviniake as MING (infected mosquito bites). I eventually caught up and Saturday night marked the end of our passage from ignorance to fully fledged surveyors: "Stormtroopers of the sea, protectors of the ecosystem."
Two of the older volunteers were leaving so we had another themed night. The sleeping areas were split into tribes and we had to come up with a God to worship, tribal costumes and a tribal dance to perform around the campfire. Silly but very entertaining.