An exciting week at Punta Gruesa with new volunteers Arrivals, amazing diving days and “The Andy Saga”

On Friday our new five weekers arrived in the form of Oliver and

Helen who are now studying like crazy to catch up with us seasoned pros. At the rate they are going they will be monitoring in no time!

Sunday was St Valentines Day and all of us girls went to bed to find a hand made card on our pillows. We still don’t know who

was responsible, but I am sure one of the guys will be taking credit sooner or later.

Now onto the Andy Saga. He started the week with the no major issues but as part of his rescue course he became the rescued when he stepped on a stingray and got payment in the form of a sharp sting to his foot. After par boiling his foot as treatment, he was well on the road to recovery. He arrived one morning to his duties with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. One of the local dogs left us a “present” in the palapa. On spotting this most of Andy’s duty group found other tasks to do, leaving Andy to man up and sort it out. When returning to the palapa with the necessary tools for the “job” Andy was surprised to find the object in question missing.When we say missing it was under his right foot. His perplexed expression when asking “Where did it go? will amuse the group for the rest of phase. Poor Andy, We hope his luck improves!

The weather this week has been very diving friendly, with five waves going out each day. We have been taking full advantage of it with the first practice monitoring dives for both fish and coral. Watching four divers trying to swim along a 30m transect, with plastic poles, must be amusing because this has seen the return of our unofficial expedition member, the Black Grouper who has been making friends with EM’s at several of dive sites and getting bolder each dive.

Also the rescue course continued this week and on Monday the first shore rescues took place. Some of the EM’s will confirm that lifting people bigger than you onto the beach, is not as easy as the rescue book and DVD makes it look!

An exciting week at Punta Gruesa with new volunteers Arrivals, amazing diving days and “The Andy Saga”