Week Four!

On Monday we couldn't go out on the boats as the weather was too bad. It was cold and rainy AGAIN. So we fed Oscar (which we actually do every morning) and weighed and measured him. Marlies is joining us this week because the school where she works is closed for the week for the Easter holidays. We cleaned out the small fish tank which took a while as it was filthy. By this time the sun had come out (yay!!!) so it was boiling. We went and did some fishing and prawn pumping in the estuary in the sun. We came back and Chanel appeared (it was her day off) and with her she had another turtle that had been stranded! This one was much smaller than Oscar, was also a male but had all his flippers, which is good. We named him Elvis. He was very weak and tired and wouldn't eat. We are hoping that he improves. We put him into the newly cleaned small tank with Oscar. Fingers crossed.
I was then required to go into the large aquarium to do a 10% water change. I was given this pumpy thing that I had to kind of shove into the gravel and then slowly pull out. It's somehow siphoned off some of the water which went into a tube and was caught by others at the bottom with buckets. I emptied the tank of 40 full buckets of water. I was not all that thrilled to be going in there as for those of you that know me, fish are not exactly my favourite things and I was worried that I would feel claustrophobic in there. But I actually really enjoyed it and it was cool being in there with all those fish!
Once we had come home in order for me to shower and for us to have some lunch, we headed back out again to do a beach clean up along Robberg beach. It was still lovely and hot at this point, until it started to absolutely piss it down. It was the cool kind of tropical rain where the droplets are huge and you get drenched in seconds. There was also a bit of thunder and lightening, but not loads. Once we got back I was freezing so changed into dry clothes and we sorted through the rubbish we had collected. Freddie them decided it would be fun to drench me again with a bucket full of rain water. I was not amused. I still need to get him back (insert evil laugh).

Tuesday was a bit of a write off for me as I had a really horrible migraine. It was the first one I've had for a long time which is good but it was a really bad one, which is bad. I pretty much spent the whole day is bed, woopie!!!

On Wednesday we went on a hike on Robberg. I was still feeling a bit funny from the migraine the day before so I did a super short route. Hilde is now back from Cape Town which is good! In the afternoon we went to Qolweni (the local township) to plant some trees. We were shown where to plant them by the preschool head mistress. We walked around to 10 different houses and planted trees outside and got pictures of the people who lived in the house holding the tree. It was good. One old guy got scared because he thought that Chanel's camera was a gun and that we were going to shoot him!
In the evening we went to Surf Cafe for open mic night. It was crazy busy and there were no tables so went somewhere else and played pool instead. I was crap as usual. I drank too much considering we were supposed to be going out on the boat at 8 the next day! We ended up running around on the beach at midnight and taking stupid photos. It was fun!

Thursday we went out to sea with a guy who is doing research into humpback dolphins. We were out for over three hours and it was really fun because it was really wavy and we were in the smallest boat so we were flung about quite a bit! It was a good trip. We saw loads of bottlenose dolphins and because the surf was so big they were properly jumping out of the waves and surfing along with them. It was awesome. We saw some humpbacks too which is good as that's what the research guy wanted! In the afternoon we had a little lesson from Tracy about research population distribution and the importance of fin profiling and things.

On Friday we went to Nature's Valley to help out with bird ringing. We helped set up long high nets to catch the birds. They were black but as soon as you walked a few paces away they pretty much disappeared which means the birds can't see them which is why they fly in and get caught. We weren't allowed to handle the birds as you need to be trained but we watched as Mark the bird guy put rings on their legs. The rings are so the birds can be identified and populations and things can be monitored. I really really can't remember what we did in the afternoon. I will add it in later if I can remember! Went out in the evening and got very drunk. Everyone left early for various reasons but me and Marlies stayed til the end and had many a fun time.

On Saturday I was very hungover. I hate hangovers. I wish they didn't exist. It was a nice sunny day so we sat outside in the sun. In the evening we went to Charlie's house for a braai. His house is sooo nice and he has a pool, but it was too cold to go in! One of his kids was there with a friend. I think he has ADHD or something and he NEVER gets tired or stops moving. He's a really nice kid.

On Sunday me Hilde and Marlies went horseback riding through Knysna forest. I really enjoyed it but let's just say I'm not a natural rider! The forest was really beautiful. It was nice to be in a totally different sort of place. We got back to Plett around 6, after an interesting journey home, and had a braai. It was good, I like food!