Abi's Deep Dive

After spending Christmas at home I am back to full pace in Mexico. We have had a few new projects in the pipeline and everything seemed to need attention as soon as we were back on base. Miguel had two weeks in the British Virgin Islands booked, so while he was sailing around getting a great tan, the team (with a few changes) got back into the swing of things.

We have a fab new field assistant who is also a dive instructor. Aislinn did her Divemaster as a volunteer here, and came back in January to work with us. She’s great! from South Africa she is a little ball of energy and positivity. Aislinn already knew all of her fish and corals so has had a huge impact from day one being able to teach both to our volunteers.

Jimena who was with us as a National Scholar is now a field assistant too, and having another Mexican National on the team is brilliant. Apart from the obvious advantage of Spanish being her first language she understands the mysterious ways of Mexican banks and systems so I am frequently asking her for help!! I have been planning some community work so Jimena will be invaluable when it comes to delivering that.

Two big community events have been a mangrove clean up and the 27th Anniversary of the Marine Park in Puerto Morelos. Our volunteers helped other community groups with the mangrove clean up, gathering rubbish that filled bags and bags from these precious areas. The mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds are all so interlinked, they are all vital for the health of this ecosystem so it was great to be able to contribute to such a worthwhile event. The anniversary is something we always love to get involved with, lots of likeminded organizations attend and it is a lovely opportunity to meet new people, explain what we do and build new networks. Our partners CONANP manage the Marine Protected Area, and they organize the event keeping a space for us to have a stand. This year they produced baseball caps and t-shirts for the event so we all had one of each as souvenirs. We were involved designing the front of the t-shirt and as you can imagine took it very seriously making sure that all of the species represented in the design are actually found in the reef here. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing we settled on parrotfish (a midnight and rainbow), they looked great!

Unfortunately Juana and I haven’t yet managed to finish our AGRRA training. Another week was scheduled for it but we didn’t think the forecast looked good enough so decided not to get involved. It is a long drive to get to Punta Allen, and the schedule means a full day to get there and set up, two 13 hour days diving and training, then another full day to pack up and get back. To get there we have to take the base truck which makes things more difficult for the team left on base, and of course it means that 2 members of staff are missing for 4 days. We were justified in our decision not to go, as actually they only managed one day of diving so still haven’t finished.

Weather here has been windy!! The port has been closed frequently so we have had no dive days where we come up with other activities instead. I have wanted a display on base to show how much rubbish we collect on beach cleans, it is such a simple activity that we do at least once a week and the amount adds up. Last year we almost got to 1000kgs! Our volunteers came up with a brilliant design which everyone who comes to base can see, let me know what you think!