Brace yourselves... people are coming

Hello everyone...

no big news from Cambodia this time... life here has pretty much settled into the usual routine... 6am alarm, early breakfast... diving in the morning if the weather is good and office work for the rest of the day...
I finished the Invertebrates and Fish presentations (and they look awesome), only corals left to do now...
A couple days ago Owen and i went on a field trip to Koh Kong, he had to meet with the director of another conservation program while i needed to leave the country and come back in with a new visa...
The trip took about 3 hours by taxi... in 7 people. Yes, 7... cambodian style... which means 4 in the back and 3 in the front... oddly enough 1 person in the passenger seat and 2 in the driver's. Don't ask me why.
Anyhow... the road was devastated to say the least... half of it wasn't even paved, while the paved part had humongous holes in it... entire pieces of "asphalt" washed away leaving gaps of red mud and half a meter deep puddles. I was praying we wouldn't get stuck all the way. Pushing the car out of the mud was really the last thing i needed. Luckily we didn't.
Eventually we got to Koh Kong... Owen went to the guesthouse while i got dropped off at the Thailand border to deal with my visa situation. After almost  an hour of queues i made it through the border and decided to take a look at the million different little shops of cheap knockoffs that were huddled on the border. I came out of there with a bottle of perfume and a new pair of "Ray Bans"... for less than 10 euros in total.. and i don't like to bargain so i guess anyone else would have spent even less (these are the situations where i wish i took more from my father's personality).
I passed through the border again, got my new visa and made my way back to Koh Kong...it was already lunch time by then so we found a nice little bar/restaurant and placated our hunger... I found out that the place had a proper coffee machine (italian bar style) so i had a nice huge cup of caramel cappuccino... I was really in need of some good coffee...I have a moka here but as most of you know a good coffee from a bar machine is a whole different universe of taste.
The next day we made our way back to Koh Sdach... this time we were only 4 people in the taxi so i even managed to get some sleep.
When we got back i found Fia working on the map of the archipelago that she started making last week, she needed to do some maintenance on the scuba equipment so while she was doing that i finished painting the map, and I must say, I'm amazed at my painting skills. I never thought i could do such a good job! :-P Maybe i should consider that as a career instead of biology!

I am alone in the base at the moment... everyone is somewhere doing stuff... Sofia is in Sihanoukville filling up the oxygen tank while Owen is on his way to Phnom Penh to pick up the new volunteers. I'm waiting for Jess (the project scientist) to arrive so i can get started on the coral presentation but as of now i have nothing to do...  I've already reorganized the dive shop yesterday and my mapping project is practically complete... i finished watching Game of Thrones season 3 (O.M.G!, just O.M.G!) and I've gone through every possible job website in existence... so i guess I'll just roll my thumbs for the rest of the day...

Oh, btw, I've got a cold and i cant stop sneezing. -.-'

Bye! ------------

Rain, Rain... More Rain.

Hello everyone!

Its been a while...  and we've changed location since the last post...
We finally arrived on Koh Sdach, at Shallow Waters Headquarters! Yay!
The trip from Sihanoukville was pretty long... about 6-7 hours on a delivery boat, counting all the stops along the way... but it was enjoyable... and most importantly, dry.
This cannot be said about Koh Sdach instead. It's been raining practically non stop since we got here. Now i see why they call it the rainy season.
Anyhow, there's a lot of "office" work for us to do anyway, so we're not missing out on much. Sofia and Owen have been going through all the welcoming speeches for the new volunteers and updating the emergency action protocols, while i've been working on the ID presentations for almost 4 days now. Inverts down, fish and corals still to go. :-S

Its a very time consuming job, but its turning out to be quite interesting and the final product is like 1000 times better than how it was before. I should have studied to be a designer or something like that instead. :-P
The base itself is really nice... a whole different world compared to the dorms in Koh Rong Sanloem. It has a huge hall, big rooms and a really nice patio in the back that looks directly to the sea.
After getting used to the simple life on Koh Rong being in this "huge" (600 families) village feels like being in a metropolis. Shops at every corner (there are no corners, its just the usual loooong main straight road), people everywhere and foooood! Yes, food! Theres even a man who sells croissant ice cream sandwiches out of a cool box on the back of his bicycle! For 20 euro cents! He's definitely the most important man on the island... at least as far as i'm concerned.
Yesterday we started Khmer lessons with our new teacher... Owen is using a Phonetic-to-Khmer book which is making me way more interested in learning the phonetic alphabet rather than Khmer. Luckily we've got some spare time on our hands these next 2 weeks (before the next volunteers come in) so i guell ill be studying both.
Our cook is really nice... she's Sea's sister... doesn't speak a word of english but we manage to understand each other somehow... and she cooks really well! The portions are way smaller compared to Eco Sea though. :-(
I think i'm gonna meet the owners of the 2 guesthouses on the island this or next week...they both have an oven so i need to befriend them so i can cook something nice. Im thinking banana bread. Yum!
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Aaaaaand it started raining again. Pouring actually.
The roof of the base is made of metal so it gets reeeeeally loud sometimes. Good thing i'm not a light sleeper.
Not many photos to share with you this time around... just a couple of the base.
Gotta get back to looking up fish on the internet...

Cya all soon!

Catching up...

I’m sitting in the bar...doing nothing... I think it’s the first time I have a free afternoon in almost two weeks… It’s been a while since the last post and a lot has happened…first of all, my previous post mysteriously disappeared from my PC, so I’ll try to fill in the missing bits and pieces from memory…If I remember correctly the last time I wrote I was telling you how good the weather had been… well ofc after that we had a couple days of continuous, heavy rain… just because I called it.
I can’t remember precisely what we did during those days, probably just chilled in the restaurant drinking hot tea waiting for a dry moment to do a quick dive or two…The bad weather didn’t last too long though, the sun was out and shining again soon enough and we went back to our usual routine…

On one day (25th Aug), two American guys found their way to this deserted island: Brad and Shawn. We soon became good friends, especially after sharing a huge fish-based super dinner (caught and cooked by Pekadai and Susan, a local couple we met two or three weeks back), and enjoying a good bottle of wine, we even lit a bonfire and gazed at a beautiful starlit cloudless sky for over an hour before going to sleep… it was amazing…

Sadly, the next day Shawn had to leave to return to America… Brad instead decided to stay around a while longer…he was supposed to stay just for one more night, but he liked the place (and company) so much that he ended up staying for over a week! During this time we had another important arrival: on Thursday Luca (the Shallow Waters director) came to visit to introduce Owen (the new project leader) to the team… an important moment in Shallow Waters history! :-P
After lunch we decided it was an occasion to celebrate! We took the next day off and headed over to the neighbouring island: Koh Rong. Life there is radically different from Koh Rong Sanloem: the village is fairly developed and a lot more touristy… 2 o 3 dive centres and endless display of bars and guesthouses tightly packed on the main beach, right off the pier. We left our stuff at one of the guesthouses and headed to the bar next door to finally use some internet! First time after almost a month! Ofc it wasn’t working properly, super slow and barely enough to check my ema, that’s why I still haven’t posted anything on the blog yet.

Anyhow, that evening was memorable…very memorable… not just because of the amazing time we had and the great company, but for the epic unforgettable dinner! The Brave One! That’s how the ginormous burger I ate was named… a 4 layered humongous delicious enormity stuffed with meat, bacon, cheese, eggs, salad, tomatoes, peppers, onion and anything else that passed  front of Frank (the South African cook and owner) while he was making it. It was Superb to say the least. I almost had two but I withheld myself just for the sake of decency.

After dinner we stayed up late downing beers, swapping stories and meeting completely random people… culminating with finding ourselves at a bar called “Vagabonds”, lying down on a plastic mat on the beach, and having to rush home when it started to rain… what an unforgettable evening! Thank you so much Brad, Owen, Luca, David & Fia!
The next day was D-day for David…. Time to hop on the boat and go back to England and normal life… on the + side, he can go back to eating all the ice cream and bacon he desires! Lucky bastard. Fia, Owen, Brad and I headed back to Koh Rong Sanloem instead, with a looong week ahead of us. We started off with the Fish & Inverts lists I had learned just a couple weeks back, but this time I was teaching them! It felt a lot like being back in uni, but this time with no grade-related pressure :-P Sofia took on the coral and substrates list instead, since I felt I would benefit from hearing it once over before teaching it. Both Brad and Owen were really interested and they were surprised at how much more stuff you notice while diving when you know what you’re looking at! It’s like looking at the reef for the first time again.
The rest of the week was intense, but not just work… we managed to fit in a couple movie nights (with the usual cookies and snacks, obviously), and enjoy Brad’s and Owen’s company before they left on the following Sunday. Owen went back to Koh Sdach to start running the SW machine, while Brad made his way first to Portugal and then to Austria to start his internship in the wine making industry, lucky him!
It’s been only me and Fia for the last 3 days now, not many customers in the resort either… she’s amazing, super easy going and fun… I couldn’t wish for a better dive instructor/teacher/adventure buddy/movie night pal/faketella eater :-P
I think this is my longest post yet… It’s almost 18.15, time to get ready for our night dive! I’ll try to be more diligent with writing posts, I promise…

Until next time!