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.
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