Last few days in Buenos Aires

After Iguazu we had a final weekend in Buenos Aires before leaving on Wednesday morning on our Dragoman overland trip through Patagonia to Santiago.

Saturday night we went to the obligatory tango show of which there are hundreds to choose from in BA. Ours was one of the smaller, cheaper ones costing only 200 pesos (some cost 1000 pesos!) We had a one hour tango lesson first in which we learnt the basic steps with varying degrees of success. We both enjoyed it very much. After that a three course dinner was included with unlimited wine which we drank in quite large amounts. The show consisted of 3 couples dancing in different styles through time from the birth of tango to the present day. Unfortunately the mix of wine and overnight bus journey the previous night meant we both kept dropping off throughout the show!!! This says nothing about the show itself which was very good - but more amount the inclusive wine. 

Saturday was also quite a special night in BA - a night of culture. A one off all night cultural festival with music, dance and video performances going on at 50 venues all over the city from 7pm to 7am. It was an amazing atmosphere. We watched a colourful, livey band on one of the street stages playing a eclectic mix of world music on various instruments including a sousaphone.

Sunday we had a quick look at the San Telmo street market again on our way to the Costenera del Sur Nature Reserve. This is a huge wild expanse between the city and the river. It is 8km around the outside and this is what we walked. There were lots of people out but not a lot of wildlife to see unfortunately. The river separates Argentina from Uruguay but is so wide you cannot see the other side. It is also very brown!

Monday we did a guided tour of the Teatro Colon, one of the world's greatest opera houses. It has been refurbished over the last 10 years and was closed last year to finish off the process. The opera season runs from April to December, unfortunately this season's frist night was the day we were due to leave BA. Doubly annoying as the tickets were being given away for free. The tours are done alternately in Spanish and English and last about one hour. We had a big blond (!) Argentinian guide who had spent lots of time in the States and spoke fluent English. He was also very amusing. The tour starts in the very impressive theatre foyer with a history of the theatre. It was built over 20 years from 1888 to 1908 by three different architects and styles, Italian, German and French. It is a very impressive building. The tour also includes the auditorium which seats 2500 with a further 500 spaces for standing. It is huge but the stage area is even bigger - 35 metres square and 48 metres high! We were also shown the view from the president's box which is really impressive. The theatre has the best acoustics in the world for a combination of orchestra and voices and every seat hears the same sound because of the design of the materials used at various levels in the walls. At 60 pesos it's not a cheap way to spend an hour but it is well worth it.

After the theatre we had a introductory Spanish lesson in the hostel we were staying in (the Milhouse Avenue - noisy but comfortable, free wifi and a good front desk to book activities through). The lesson was pretty basic and covered some stuff we already knew but was useful and particularly helped with Argentinian pronounciation, i.e. 'll' is pronouced 'sh' here instead of 'y'.

Monday evening was officially the start of our tour and we had a meeting to be introduced to the rest of the group and get some info. There are 20 people on the tour and two driver/guides. Most people had already been travelling on the truck for a while and there were only 4 of us joining in BA. We went to an Irish pub around the corner for the rest of the evening and got to know people.

Our last day in BA was spent shopping for outdoor clothing and equipment and having a final meal out in the city. Nick said it was the best steak he had ever had and it was huge - 400g. We went to a lovely restaurant called La Posada just off Avenida de Mayo. I had pasta as I was a bit steaked out and that was also fantastic - homemade pasta and sauce and plenty of it. We also couldn't resist dessert which was equally fantastic! A great end to our time in the city.

Iguazu Falls - WOW!

We spent 3 fantastic days and probably the most awesome waterfalls in the world – Iguazu Falls. They are in the North-east of Argentina and span the Rio Iguazu which marks the border between Argentina and Brazil. There are national parks on both sides where the rainforest has been conserved. Since 1930 most of the rainforest in this part of South America has disappeared entirely. The park on the Argentine side is smaller than the Brazilian side but has larger areas that are accessible visitors. Also on the Brazil side there are more extra activities that you need to pay extra for on top of the £15 park entrance fee and less that is included. Therefore, we spent 2 days on the Argentine side and 1 on the Brazilian side. We were also staying in Puerto Iguazu in Argentina so the Argentine park was much easier to get to.

The first day we walked all the short trails of which there are 3. The trails are made up of metal and wooden walkways through the jungle and across the rivers. Even though it was incredibly busy there were enough viewing platforms to get a good look at the falls from many angles and take lots of pictures. We walked the lower circuit which gives plenty of awesome views from a distance of most parts of the falls. Then we did the upper circuit which goes across the top of part of the falls. This one gets you much closer so you can feel the power. The final trail is joined to the others by a narrow gauge railway and the walk goes out across an immensely wide part of the river to Devil's Throat. The most powerful and impressive of the areas. The walkway goes right to the edge of one side of the 'throat' so you can look down into it. The mist and spray from the waterfall rises much higher than the falls itself and you get quite wet standing on the edge.

On all trails the rainforest wildlife is obviously evident. We were surrounded by butterflies all the time. There were also lots of coaties that are as tame as grey squirrels in the UK and there are plenty of signs warning you not to feed them. They are sooooo cute though! We also saw lizards, jays and even toucans up in the trees. One of the most unusual creatures was a stick insect on the path railing – I've never seen one in the wild before!

On our second day in the Argentine park we did the Maducu trail which is a much longer path through the rainforest down to a small waterfall and a pool you can swim in. The walk was 3.5km each way and was on a dirt track so much more relaxing than the metal walkways of the other trails. Every so often along this trail we would see large spiders in their webs just above our heads. The spiders were beautifully coloured and the webs spanned several metres.

I swam in the pool and stood under the waterfall. It was too powerful to stand directly underneath and the rocks were the slipperiest I have ever seen so I made do with standing slightly behind.

On our third day we crossed the border to Brazil for a different point of view. We had to get stamped out of Argentina and into Brazil and vice versa on the return. This filled a whole page of my passport – I'm starting to worry that I will run out of pages before we return home! As I said above the Brazilian park is largest in area but has less that you can visit. They have a road linking all the areas and buses travelling up and down the length of it (10km) every few minutes. The walkways here are wood and concrete and we thought the views from this side were actually more impressive than from Argentina. You get to see the Devil's Throat from below it and it truly is incredible. The awesome power of the river flowing away from it is also very impressive. There are rainbows in the mist everywhere and you have to be really careful with your camera to not get it soaking wet. I bet a few cameras have been thoroughly ruined here.

Overall, it was an amazing 3 days and I wouldn't hesitate to visit again if I'm ever in the area.

First impressions of Argentina

We left Tobago for South America and Buenos Aires on the morning of Tuesday 15th March. We flew American Airlines via Miami, I wouldn't recommend the airline. The first flight was several hours late meaning we had to be rebooked for the flight from Miami to Buenos Aires. Luckily there was another flight that night so we weren't stuck in Miami. However, despite the flight being long haul they charged for alcoholic drinks and there was a very small selection of films to watch. It was a bit of a comedown after our last international flight with BA.

Anyway, we eventually arrived at our hotel in Buenos Aires at lunchtime Wednesday. We decided to treat ourselves to a little bit of luxury to kick off our 6 months of backpacking and stayed in the Awwa Spa and Suites hotel in the Palermo district. It had the biggest bed I've ever seen, a small pool, sauna and gym in the basement and a breakfast buffet that included cakes! The room also had two electric hobs but no pans to cook with which we thought was a little odd. The wifi didn't work properly for the first day or so and the pool was closed for maintenance or cleaning on two occasions we wanted to use it. We also had to wait for the sauna to heat up when we wanted to use it as it wasn't turned on the whole time. But overall we had a pleasant stay and it was a good base for exploring the Palermo parks and Recoleta district.

Our first full day in Buenos Aires was St Patricks Day - a seemingly worldwide excuse to drink! Even here there are several 'Irish' pubs although an actual pint of draught Guinness proved hard to find. Bottles were the best option. We started the day with a guided tour of the Recoleta Cemetery, archetecturially the third best cemetery in the world. It's a maze of upper class tombs including many presidents and it is also the final resting place of Eva Peron whose body was eventually buried here after 2 decades of being moved around the world. 

Another tomb belongs to Admiral William Brown, the Irish founder of the Argentine Navy. As it was St Patrick's Day there was a military ceremony to commemorate him. This included a mixture of Irish music and the Argentine national anthem played by a military band and lots of raising and lowering of Irish and Argentine flags.

Later we headed out to find an Irish pub to drink in and found many. We had a few drinks in one just out of the centre first and then moved to the 'Irish' pub district where thousands of people were crammed into and fenced off area in the street and there was no way to get into any pub. Eventually, the need for the toilet overcame the need for a drink and we headed back to the hotel.

On Friday we explored the gardens and parks of Palermo which are very picturesque and varied. Especially nice is the Japanese Gardens although not being allowed to sit on the grass meant we couldn't relax there as much as we wanted to.  We did see probably the biggest Koi carp in the world though, they are monsters. The planetarium is also in the parks but is currently closed for refurbishments so we couldn't see a show. They are running events at the weekends where the public can use telescopes but we decided not to do this.

Saturday was the final day of the six nations tournament and having not been in a country that broadcasts rugby for 6 months we found a bar showing the games and stayed there all day! Disappointingly, the first game I saw England play in ages was a poor performance against Ireland but at least we won the tournament if not the grand slam.

Most shops in Buenos Aires are closed on Sundays but there is a huge street market in San Telmo selling pretty much everything from really nice art and handicrafts to mass produced souvenirs. It's probably on a similar scale to Portobello market in London but more varied stalls. It ends in a square that is packed with stalls and a small cleared area where free tango shows are performed throughout the day. A very pleasant way to spend a Sunday.

Monday we planned to leave BA in the evening on the overnight bus to Puerto Iguazu so we had the day to do more sightseeing. Turns out this was scuppered by almost everything in the city being closed on Mondays. All museums were shut and even the Rose Garden in the parks wasn't open. On one way past the zoo we saw a group of dogs tied up outside - maybe they were trying to get in! Dog walking seems to be quite a common job here. We saw many people with 20-30 dogs each in the parks.

We pootled around the city doing not very much until we needed to head to the bus station. We chose to travel by first class 'super cama' bus which means a fully flat bed, dinner and breakfast including wine and champagne/whisky, personal video screens with a choice of 3 channels including films in English. Even though it takes 16 hours to get to the falls it was a very pleasant journey. It's overnight so we saved on a night's accommodation and got two meals included and it was also half the price of flying. We also didn't have the hanging around at the airport that you get with flying. Shame there are no buses like these in Europe!

Working at Coral Cay Conservation – a summary of a fantastic 4 months!

So I just finished my 4 month stint as scuba instructor at CCC Tobago and am now taking a break from diving to travel starting with South America. I'm hoping to get a dive in at Ushuaia in a few weeks though. I had an amazing time at Coral Cay and will miss it a lot.

The base is situated in Man O War Bay in the fishing village of Charlotteville and the cottage is right on the beach with lovely views particularly early in the morning and at sunset. There is a rich shallow reef right outside the cottage. Unfortunately, sedimentation and silt from landslides caused by rainfall due to Hurricane Tomas in October meant that even by March we had only had visibility good enough to dive it a few times. The house has 3 bedrooms sleeping 4 people each and ample storage for the very few clothes and things you need to live here. There is a deck outside the house used for eating meals on and it's really nice for everyone to gather and talk about the days' dives at mealtimes. At the back of the house is a classroom for scuba and science training which has a further 2 beds in as well for when numbers go above 12.

As scuba instructor I was responsible for the dive training, making sure the equipment was working and informing the expedition leader when it wasn't, approving the science dive plan and making the recreational dive plan. Other general staff duties include filling cylinders, reminding people of the rules and generally helping the base and project to run well. Every staff member and volunteer must be advanced open water and EFR certified but CCC also offers rescue diver and divemaster courses for longer term volunteers. So I got a reasonable variety of courses to teach. It would have been nice to have the opportunity to do some specialties but the science obviously comes first on this type of project so there wasn't time for additional courses. In 4 months I certified 6 open water divers, 10 advanced open water divers, 9 rescue divers, 15 emergency first responders and 5 divemasters. At first glance this doesn't sound a lot but when you factor in my other duties apart from teaching and the logistics of fitting in rescue and DM training around science work this was plenty to keep me busy. For the first 2 months I don't think I sat down during the days at all! The number of rescue and DMTs was increased by CCC offering these courses free to volunteers staying longer than a certain amount of time for expeditions starting between September and December 2010. My biggest challenge was a volunteer who joined us for 12 weeks as a complete novice and had booked to do all the way through to divemaster. Fortunately, she was hardworking and capable and completed the course admirably.

After Christmas I caught a cold and then a middle ear infection and then another bad cold/flu which kept me out of the water for most of 6 weeks. It was very frustrating and while I managed to complete all the dive training I needed to I was really disappointed not to be able to spend much more time with my divemaster trainees. I had plenty of help from the expedition leader who was a divemaster but really felt more personal contact would have been ideal. But everyone completed the course to a higher standard than I actually think I was trained to when I did my DM so it worked out pretty well. Being ill also meant that I did very little surveying because I couldn't dive for so long and by the time I recovered I had forgotten some of my training.

There were many logistical challenges to working at CCC Tobago. At times we didn't have a boat and no visibility for shore diving. I also had to find ways to fit training around the science when the sites being surveyed were not suitable for training. The regulators are very old and need constant attention so making sure all the volunteers had a working one was a challenge particularly as there is only 1 qualified Aqualung technician on Tobago and no access to service kits! The compressor is a small portable one which while new last November is being used far beyond what it is designed for. Maintaining this falls to the boat captain rather than the scuba instructor but there were times when I had to change my recreational dive plan because we could not fill tanks.

The project had not been working well when I arrived, due to a combination of difficult problems and unsuitable staff. By the time I left the project was working well. Surveys were being carried out, dive training was being completed on time, dives were taking place according to the plan and all safety rules were being applied. Most of these things had not been happening before I arrived on the base.

I had an awesome time at CCC Tobago, met some great hardworking people, certified my first divemasters and did some amazing and very varied diving. I saw southern stingrays, eagle rays, turtles, huge french and queen angel fish, a nurse shark, a seahorse, the resident green moray Sam on many occasions and so many other beautiful creatures. It is incredibly hard work with nowhere near enough sleep but also very satisfying and I would highly recommend working for or volunteering with Coral Cay Conservation to anyone with an interest in diving and marine conservation.

Unfortunately, since I left I've heard that the Tobago project will be finished in June but CCC has other sites around the world including Southern Leyte in the Philippines which I volunteered at in 2008 which has the most fantastic house reef I have ever seen.

A diving adventure

It’s the end of an epic diving adventure.  Back in October, Claire and I left the UK to start a year long sabbatical.  Two hundred and thirty four dives later and its time to move on.

Bonaire

We started with six weeks diving in Bonaire, truly the home of diving freedom.  There you can pick up as many tanks as you like, park on the beach almost anywhere and dive as often as you like.  Three hours underwater in  a day wasn’t uncommon for us.  The visibility was always stunning and the water was hot - 29-30 degrees - meaning I could dive in just shorts.

The sea life was wonderful - tarpon, stingrays, eagle rays, turtles, morays and all the Caribbean reef fish like angels, parrots, butterflies, damsels and many more.

It was amazing!

Tobago

Next stop was Chartlotteville, Tobago, for diving as part of a conservation organisation.  Claire worked as the scuba instructor while I took part in surveying and helping to train other volunteers in fish and coral identification.  I gained much experience at diving in poor visibility, underwater navigation, carrying surface marker buoys, leading dives and carrying equipment underwater.  This formed an excellent base for completing my Divemaster course in between surveying.

It was colder than Bonaire - 26-27 degrees, requiring wetsuits for most of us, and the visibility in Charlotteville was often murky.  Speyside, the next village, was the base for surveying off the islands of Little Tobago and Goat Island, where visibility was always very clear.

I found treasure while diving.  The divers here were pretty careless and on various dives I found a mask, a fin, a lead weight and a $5TT note (about 50 pence).

There was a lot of time for swimming and by the end I was swimming ninety minutes without much trouble.  Given I can already knock off marathons for fun, I seriously started to think about an Ironman.  I’d need to put in plenty of cycle training but I reckon with a couple of months of that I could be ready for one, albeit pretty slow.

I also spent two weeks diving for fun, one week with Manta Lodge in Speyside, who I definitely don’t recommend, and one week with Extra Divers in Crown Point.  Extra were good, but the diving in Crown Point is mostly unimpressive compared with Speyside.

Onwards

As I write, I’m about to pack up my dive gear and ship it back to the UK.  My diving has improved beyond recognition over the last five months and I am going to miss being in the water every day.  A sad day indeed, but the dive kit would be too much to carry as we set off backpacking for Buenos Aires on the next leg of our journey.

Coral Cay Conservation Tobago - a review

Coral Cay Conservation (CCC) survey coral reefs around the world, to assist with preserving the health of the seas.  This is achieved with a mix of paying volunteers and unpaid staff.

I spent three months with CCC Tobago, from December 2010 to March 2011.

CCC Tobago is based at Man-O-War Bay Cottages in Charlotteville, a small fishing village, and is right on the beach.  It is a beautiful bay, surrounded by rainforest, and with a handful of shops and places to eat, a fishing co-operative and not much else.

On arrival at the base, a single building surrounded by coconut, almond and citrus trees, my first thought was how crowded it was.  In a house designed for a maximum of eight people, CCC have crammed fifteen at the time of writing.  Let me guide you through the house.

There is a lovely wooden deck on the beach, which is used for mealtimes.  It’s a shame that there aren’t enough chairs for everyone and most of them are broken beyond comfort.  I couldn’t find a cup to have a drink either - the expedition leader had hidden them all to discourage people from leaving them lying around the house.  Just what I needed after a long journey to get here!

Inside the house, there is a communal area, again with a woeful lack of seating; a table on which we lay out meals; and whiteboards for drawing up the plans for each day.  Directly off of this room are two bedrooms, each designed for two people but containing two pairs of bunk beds.  I couldn’t even fit between the beds without turning sideways.  Storage space is in short supply, as is privacy.

A corridor with one open plan sink, two showers and two toilets leads to the back of the house.  There was only one working toilet for the first ten weeks I was on site.  At the back is the science room, which houses a couple of computers, some diving equipment and also two beds.  If the small front bedrooms don’t have much privacy and storage, its non-existent here!  I really felt for the people who were stuck sleeping here.  There is one larger bedroom at the back, also with four bunks which was almost exclusively reserved for the staff.  Finally, there is a kitchen.  Functional but cramped, although the oven struggles to cook anything.

Staff and volunteers…

For most of my stay there were more staff than volunteers.  They were generally hard working, lovely people, with the exception of the Expedition Leader for the first half of my stay.  An obnoxious man who insisted on playing loud gangsta rap all day, even through lectures.  He drank so heavily he upset one volunteer enough to leave four weeks early; and he also stole from the volunteers and from Coral Cay.  A new Expedition Leader took over half way through my stay, but sadly the project was in such a mess that, despite his hard work, it never really got back on track.

There was a Project Scientist and two Science Officers, responsible for all of the science training (learning to identify fish, coral and diseases; and how to survey); a Scuba Instructor responsible for all dive training; an Education Officer who worked with local schools and the community; and a Medical Officer.  Finally the Boat Captain, who did an excellent job.  The previous Boat Captain was been sacked part way through my stay.

Staff typically stay for 3-6 months and I felt the high turnover combined with poor handovers showed in the running of the site.  Staff are unpaid, apart from the boat captain.  Volunteers pay and the per-week rate gets less the longer you stay.  I paid £2,600 for fifteen weeks, which included a 10% discount.  This included a free Divemaster course (just the teaching, I still paid for materials).

Into the sea…

Coral Cay places a strong emphasis on safe diving, with conservative dive plans and many, many rules.

Some of this is good - with inexperienced divers diving up to twice a day on air, six days a week its sensible to be cautious (for example, almost all dives are limited to 43 minutes).  But the rules were arbitrarily enforced and broken far more often by staff than by volunteers and I can’t overemphasise just how many rules there were.

For example, one rule is that all divers must wear a mask at all times on the surface (this was enforced briefly) and must have a reg or snorkel in their mouth at all times on the surface (I never saw this enforced).  What a great way to take the fun out of diving - divers almost always ascend excited and immediately want to talk about their dive on hitting the surface.  Most volunteers wore snorkels but one staff member refused to wear a snorkel for the entire duration of my stay and this was accepted.

Another example is that all divers must carry a dive knife and this is enforced, but if you’ve lost your knife then its fine to dive without one.

Scuba Equipment

I recommend bringing your own scuba equipment.  The regulators that CCC hires out are awful, regularly leaking loudly and so old they are beyond repair.  The BCDs are in good condition though.  Unfortunately you can expect your own gear to take a battering with inexperienced divers lifting it onto the boat and treading on the hoses and second stages.

There was a “scuba shack” when I arrived - a padlocked wooden wall around the kit storage area, but this collapsed a few weeks in and was never replaced.  So all the dive gear was stored, partly exposed to the rain and always easily available for anyone to steal.  Fortunately this never happened during my stay.

The rinse tanks were a couple of leaky mini-dustbins which just about did the job for a quick rinse after a dive, but there was no way to properly soak dive kit for more than a few minutes.

The previous scuba instructor had not even filed the paperwork with PADI for the courses he had conducted, or done all the knowledge reviews!  This caused a lot of grief when the new scuba instructor taught the students their Divemaster course.

The Diving

Many of the experienced divers were surprised and disappointed at the diving conditions in the bay where we did much of our diving, especially when doing shore diving in 1-2 metre visibility when there was no money available to hire a boat.  The boat diving around Charlotteville was highly variable, with some good days and some bad, but not really what people were expecting for Caribbean diving.

We did some surveys in Speyside, the next village just a ten minute drive away, where the visibility was always stunning, although I was surprised at the lack of hard coral there.  It was mostly sea fans and sponges.

I got only one night dive (with a possible second just before I leave) in fifteen weeks which was a big disappointment.  Again, there were so many rules involved with a night dive that I don’t think the staff could face the effort.  A night dive could only be on the house reef directly in front of the house and the ascent had to be on a mooring line about 100 metres out to sea (this was easily ignored - descend the line then swim back into shore underwater and say you couldn’t find the line again).  Much simpler would have just been to walk into the sea and descend immediately onto the reef.  It is bordered by sand and easy to navigate.

When I arrived, CCC were hiring boats because their own boat had sunk during a hurricane the previous autumn.  This appeared to be putting huge pressure on the budget, and appeared to be the direct cause of us doing so many murky shore dives when there was no money available to hire a boat.  After many empty promises the boat was eventually repaired and back in the water with one of its two engines, but apparently unsafe to take far out to sea so we continued to do most of our diving within the bay.  It was often hard to tell what the real story was - more transparency would have helped but volunteers are treated as being pretty dumb much of the time.  The staff often don’t realise how much everyone talks to everyone else in such a confined environment!

The Science

The science side of the project appeared badly organised, probably due to the staff turnover rate (the typical stay was 3-6 months) combined with poor handovers and young staff inexperienced at management.

Examples include a lack of information on the frequently used dive sites - such as a lack of dive site maps or information on which sites were best for studying coral disease or fish and so on.  In the middle of my stay there was a fortnight where we just did fun diving, photo taking and skills practice (all highly enjoyable) because nobody was able to organise any surveying.  For a given dive site, currents can vary a lot throughout the day and there appeared to be no attempt to time survey dives to coincide with weak currents, making for some entertaining and exhausting attempts to swim against the current (all surveys are “out and back” where we lay out a 50 metre reel of rope, then wind it back in).

The dive plan each day often contained mistakes and was regularly modified throughout the day, making it difficult to be sure you were in the right place at the right time.

It would have been lovely to learn more about what was done with the data we collected, but again this information was hard to come by.

Freedom and Safety

Volunteers are only allowed to walk about 100 metres either side of the house on their own; and only to the end of the village - a few minutes walk - in pairs.  At night they are not allowed out at all, not even for a walk on the beach.  The only exception is if you can get a staff member to go with you, then you can go pretty much anywhere.  This created a lot of bad feeling, especially with the only internet access almost in sight of the house but still not accessible on your own.

I started ignoring the rules and found out I could get away with plenty of visits to the internet (I can’t call it an internet café because it was just computers and laundry - no drinks).  I could also wander into the village to buy food undisturbed.  This was one advantage of the overcrowding - with so many people around, it was easier for one person to disappear for a bit.  There were often visitors in the house and the policy on them was always unclear.  It appeared that visitors were generally not allowed in the house, but there were plenty of exceptions for people associated with Coral Cay.

Swimming was restricted - you had to get a “shore marshal” - anyone from the base - to watch you at all times and you were restricted to a small area in front of the house.  Despite the number of people on site, everyone was busy and it was harder than you might expect to find a shore marshal.  We even had professional lifeguards watching over the beach, right next door, but still had to have our own shore marshal!

I gave up and went for long swims right across the bay on my own on Sunday mornings when anyone who cared about enforcing rules was more interested in sleeping.  The view from out at sea back to the tree covered mountains was amazing.

I know that several other volunteers ventured off on their own on a regular basis.  While the staff kept on at us about rules, we just did it discreetly and got away with it anyway.

Coral Cay have a bizarre attitude to safety.  They implement so many rules to ensure safety in some areas, but are quite happy to cram six volunteers inside a pickup truck, with all the dive gear and two staff on the back, with a driver who has been drinking and is using his mobile phone for the entire journey, while driving on winding mountain roads in heavy rain.

This is all a real shame.  Because volunteers are treated like children and not trusted, they don’t feel motivated to help out improving the site, which could have made a tremendous difference.

Food and Drink

We eat communal meals, with breakfast at 6:00am, lunch at noon and dinner at 6:00pm.  These mostly worked well with everyone cooking, and doing other chores, on a rota.

Meat was almost non-existent.  In fifteen weeks, I had beef twice and chicken or fish about once a fortnight!  Most meals are heavily carbohydrate based, often with at least two of rice, pasta or potatoes.  We also bake fresh bread every day.  This was lovely but didn’t last long because it was the only communal food we were allowed to eat between meals (and only with margarine, no jam!) and six hours is a long time to go between meals when diving.

For the first half of my stay, we were regularly told that there was not enough money for food, and vegetables were in short supply.  This was during the period where the expedition leader was regularly drunk and probably stealing from the budget.  For the second half, vegetables were more readily available and we ate much better, but the lack of meat was a real issue.  I gave up and started eating beef and chicken at the small restaurants in the village.

We did eat a lot of fresh grapefruit and oranges, which we picked from the trees near the house.


The rules are four beers per night maximum and no spirits the day before diving.  And no getting drop down drunk at all.  In fact, people rarely drank beer in the week, but most people let their hair down on Saturday night.  Entertainingly, it was the staff setting the example with getting really drunk and encouraging the volunteers to do likewise!

The CCC website is misleading when it states that fish is readily available and we have it on the barbeque! It is misleading in many respects - the "Mot Mot trail" and "barbeques on a secret beach" were never available.  Recreational diving was available most Saturdays, except when the underpowered compressor was out of action or we were told "just one dive this Saturday", but it was often shore diving in poor visibility.  We got a very rare trip to the nearby beach bar one Saturday evening, but most Saturdays we were stuck at the base.  The "resident pod of dolphins" was an amazing sight, but seen only once.  Charlotteville being on the "forefront of the best diving Tobago has to offer" is a joke.  That is over the hill in Speyside, around Little Tobago and Goat Island, but at least we did get to do some surveying there.

Overcrowding

The overcrowding and lack of maintenance did nothing for morale.  The house was steadily decaying and when anything broke, it took a long time to get fixed.  The staff sleeping in the communal rooms looked thoroughly unimpressed with their raw deal.   At the time of writing, the plan is to have a second staff member sleep on the floor when another person arrives next week, brining us up to sixteen people.

When I arrived they weren’t even enough forks, dinner plates or mugs for everyone.  If its raining and we are stuck indoors, the communal room barely seats half the group and there is simply nowhere quiet to relax after a tiring day of diving.

Conclusion

I had some good times diving with Coral Cay Conservation and met some lovely people, but the excessive number and arbitrary enforcement of rules, the lack of personal freedom, and the overcrowding took too much of the fun out of it.  Coral Cay Conservation need to remember that they have paying customers.  If you want to do a lot of diving on the cheap then it might be for you.  I won’t be back.