End of first 5 weeks in Pez Maya- start of monitoring, lionfish hunting and pirate party!

This was my last week at Pez Maya and it was as good as ever. We had a week full of diving but also full of other fun activities.

The diving was okay weather wise this week. The weekend as well as Monday was gorgeous but Tuesday and Wednesday were quite windy and rainy. Because of the wind on Tuesday we couldn’t get out past the reef. We did shallow dives inside the reef, which is normally not as fun because it is crowded doing spots in shallow water, but we decided to just have a fun dive instead so it was a very nice dive day. The rest of our diving this week has consisted of sizing fish, coral communities spots, practice monitors for both fish and coral and some of us have done our first real monitor dives!

Its feels so great to have finally finished the training and to actually get monitoring! On some dives we`ve even done some lionfish hunting (they are an invasive species that are quite detrimental to the reef) and today brought back two dead lionfish that were dissected and tasted.

Out of the water we`ve been having lots of fun as well. Earlier in the week we had a group game of rounders! For those of you who don’t know what rounders is (I didn´t) it is kind of like baseball or softball but less complicated…I think? We also had another Pub quiz on Friday that involved twister, musical chairs, a scavenger hunt, Pictionary and quizzing volunteers on each other. It was more like interactive games rather than a quiz but it was fun nonetheless. We also had a very successful pirate party! Everyone dressed up, had swards and eye patches – it was a lot of fun.

Overall an amazing last week! We did lots of diving, finally got some monitoring in, played around in the sand and just had a blast. It was a great way to end my 5 weeks at Pez Maya.

By Sam

End of first 5 weeks in Pez Maya- start of monitoring, lionfish hunting and pirate party!