Last Turn

Only 5 days left to go... these last 4 weeks have passed faster than ever. Having so many people around the base made everything so much more fun and stimulating! I practically finished my divemaster course a couple days ago: done all the tests, passed all the exams, drawn all the maps, and saved all the drowning divers... we'll be celebrating this weekend. Yay! :-D Ellen will also be joining in on the celebrations for her Open Water Diver certification, her fist step in her zero to hero journey (from non diver to divemaster in 6 months).
The past week has been all about dive training and species recognition lessons: Ellen did her Open Water, Caroline her Advanced and the others started studying for their Rescue Diver course. Everyone learned how to identify the different species of invertebrates, fish and substrates and started testing out the new survey methodology. I've been assisting on all the courses, giving me the chance to see how it feels like to be on the teaching side of the lesson. I've been enjoying it a lot and i would love to continue my own training by becoming a dive instructor and being able to certify friends and family.
Talking about the future... remember last post when I said there might be an opportunity for me to come back? Well, its now official! Shallow Waters asked me to come back next year as their Science Officer once Marina leaves (in May-June 2014). The only catch is that I have to do my Dive Instructor Course first, but that's no big deal, especially since I was already thinking about doing it even before they said anything.
Things really seem to be falling into place. I remember when I was leaving Italy three months ago saying that the best outcome would have been to stay here working for them. It was just a dream back then, but its almost become reality now! The contract wold be for a whole year... and it's a bit scary to think about. I've only been here 3 months and i'm already starting to miss the commodities of the civilized world... good internet connection, entertainment, good food, wine... not to talk about friends and family; but it would be the opportunity of a lifetime. After a year here I could finally say I have some real experience in the marine conservation field and i could apply to all those jobs that consider me inexperienced now. The more i think about it the more i believe it would be the perfect stepping stone for my career.
But lets go one step at a time. First of all: roadtrip around Cambodia. I'll leave Koh Sdach with Marina and Jess on the 28th to go to back to Phnom Penh; we'll stay there till the 31st, when Jess will go back to England, Marina will come back to SW headquarters and I will start my actual roadtrip. First destination will be south-eastern Cambodia; I'll stay around Kampot and Kep for about 5 days and then I'll go to Battambang and Siem Reap, in the north-western part of the country. The bulk of my trip will be in Siem Reap for sure, in the temple city of Angkor Wat. I'll stay there almost a whole week before moving first to Kampong Cham, then to Kratie and finally to Boeng Yeak Lom, in the far north-eastern tip of Cambodia. These regions are known for their wonderful river scenaries (Mekong River), untouched lakes and sky high waterfalls, but i'll tell you more when I'll get there (or better, i'll let my camera tell you more).
On one side i'm really sad i'm leaving Koh Sdach, but on the other hand i really cant wait to go on this adventure and see all these spectacular places.
I'm also getting quite excited about coming back home, and I really wasn't expecting this feeling. I mean, of course I've missed my family and friends, but this wasn't much different to my trip to Brazil... and way shorter too... I din't feel this way after 3 months being there... I wonder what's different... of if something changed in me. Who knows.
Still, i cant wait to come back home and go out for a big nice dinner with all my family and friends, enjoying some good wine and the best company in the world.
This post is starting to get way too long... I still have a lot to tell you all but I'll try to spread it out with the following posts. I think i won't bring my PC along with me on my roadtrip (to save backpack space) but i can still post from my phone... i'll try to write something every day to keep you all updated on my location but don't expect the posts to be long or fancy (since i cant really control the page format from my phone). You'll probably find a post with only text and then a couple more posts with only a photo... i'll do my best to keep the blog simple and organized and in the worst case i'll just reformat everything once i get back to Phnom Penh on the 17th-18th before catching my flight. Also, the photo gallery won't get updated until i get my hands back on my PC... i'm sorry... but i really need the space in my tiny backpack for my clothes. :-P
I'll still post some low-res pic from my phone though.

Hugs!

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!

Mad Monkey Business

Hello everyone!

First of all i would like to apologize for my rusty English... I speak it all the time but when it comes to writing I don’t practice as much as I’d like to… luckily Google always comes readily to the rescue, so  with its autocorrect feature at least the orthographic mistakes should be taken care of…
I ended my last post with my arrival at Phnom Penh International Airport… so I’ll pick up from there…  After the usual bureaucratic border control and having picked up my luggage, I went for the airport exit, where I was greeted by Sea, a local employee of Shallow Waters responsible for managing arrivals, transfers and helping the arriving volunteers with whatever they might need… from food to local SIM cards… I must Say that without him I would probably still trying to get a lift from the airport to the hostel, so three cheers for Sea!

We waited a half hour for another volunteer to arrive and then we all hopped on a “Remork” (also known as “Tuk Tuk”), which is a motorbike pulling a sort of 4 person chinese-ish looking wagon.  A death trap to say the least… especially after seeing the consideration that Cambodians have for road code.
Anyhow… after a quick 15 minute ride we got to the Mad Monkey Guesthouse:  a wonderful, perfectly kept, western style hostel in the middle of Phnom Penh… Apart from being huge (4 double rooms and 6-8 dorms, each with 6-12 beds), it was incredibly well organized and very nicely decorated. From what I saw in that single night that I stayed there, the owners offered free accommodation to anyone who felt artist enough to paint a mural on one of their walls… and apparently the system works!
After having dropped off our bags we quickly went out to grab a bite… I was craving for something typical and strange so Sea took us to eat something from one of the million street vendors present at every corner of the road… Since I wanted something strange, the menu offered the following: Duck foetus (still in the egg), sun dried Sting Ray, and freshwater snails… everything soaked with the typical spicy sauce filled with garlic and lime. My opinion on all three dishes was: good, alternative, very interesting, but without any particular taste… especially since everything was masked by the super strong taste of the spicy garlic sauce…
After dinner we went back to the hostel and crashed in bed.

The next morning I woke up relatively early (8ish) to enjoy a really wonderful fruit based breakfast: mixed fruit bowl, white yoghurt, passion fruit smoothie and freshly squeezed orange juice… heavenly.
The program for that day was quite simple: wait for the bus to pick us up at the hostel and enjoy a 5 and a half hour drive to Sinahoukville a medium sized town on the southern coast of Cambodia. What a nightmare, some might think… instead, the trip was wonderful!  Much better than any similar trip I ever did in Europe, Brazil or anywhere else…  The minibus was big enough for 18 people, driver included, and fully equipped with TV, DVD player and on board Wi-Fi…. the bus of my dreams!  If only they used something like this back in the “civilized world”… and for a mare 10$...

Anyhow… after watching “Step Up Revolutions” , “007-Skyfall” and the first part of “The Hobbit” we finally arrived to our destination, where we were readily greeted by the creator of the project: Luca…  yes, Luca.. another Italian almost ashamed of his nationality, just as myself, who caught the first opportunity he had to run away from Italy, study in Cambridge and then start up this wonderful Project. He gave us a quick briefing of what we were going to do in the next few weeks while sipping a nice fresh fruit shake and soon after we were headed to the Dive Centre House, where we would have spent the night… but by the time we got on the pickup… it started pouring out of nowhere! A classic summer storm, they called it… and what a storm! We got completely soaked in no time.
The rest of the evening was pretty calm… a nice shower to freshen up, a normal dinner with chicken soup and sandwiches… and a stroll down the main road, passing in front of a million super cheap massage centres (15$ for a 2 hour full body massage) ending up on the seaside, on Serendipity Beach. After another 20minutes of summer storm we caught the first tuk tuk we could find and headed home…

The next day we set off for the island of Koh Rong Sanolem, to the EcoSea Dive Centre and Resort… but that’s another story…