Hello there, me again! 8th of December, I don’t think I will ever forget the events of that day! This is one of those stories I plan to tell my kids, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren (if I ever live that long). We started off early in the morning at around 8, we made sure we had enough refreshments for the 7 hour journey. We began our trail at La Passe (Silhouette Island) we walked for about 45 minutes before taking a break. Where we took a group photo. We were accompanies by a German Biologist; Sascha Pawlowski. He was on his annual search for reptiles. He shared with us his many stories of his numerous expeditions and his workplace which is a multinational company with over 90000 employees (yes more than Seychelles’’ population). We soon parted ways as Sascha commenced his find for frogs. The trail to Grande Barbe was not at all short nor easy but all of it was worth it. “Behind mountains there are mountains” I’ve always loved this quote but always considered it metaphorically up until Grande barbe. For the first 3 days I had been to silhouette, “Mont Pot à Eau” was the only peak in my peripheral vision, up until we crossed Silhouette and saw the well-known “Mont Dauban” reaching 740m alt. After having descended “Gratte Fesse” (this is where the bat loggers for the sheath tailed bats had been placed) and confronted numerous obstacles we were finally on Grande Barbe beach, one of the most serene beaches I have ever been to. Mr Abdula Jumaye and Mrs Elvire Dubois are the only inhabitants of Grande Barbe. They have lived there for approximately three decades and take only one hour and 10 minutes to reach La Passe (we took 3!!!!) After a short break we immediately geared up with our measuring tape, data entry forms and GPS and set out on the edge of Grande Barbe where we spotted our first turtle for the day! We of course had to keep some distance as she was still making her way towards shore to dig its nest, so we monitored the other parts of the beach. In order to monitor a turtle’s track , we had to take the GPS point at which the turtle emerged from the sea and then measure its width; Did you know a hawksbill can grow as big as 100cm while a Green surpasses this? We afterwards filled the data sheets and repeated this process for more than 15 tracks. We left Grande Barbe at 3PM and reached La Passe at around 6PM. The trail to Grande Barbe was one hectic walk and a walk I don’t regret! I would like to thank ICS, SYAH, the CYC and the British High Commission for this well appreciated opportunity. Thank you for reading and keep following our journeys!
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AuthorThe interns of the Prosperity & Environment: Promoting sustainable development opportunities for youth in the Blue Economy sector. Archives
January 2018
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