Settled and loving it :)

Hey folks, first week and first up date.

Island life has been good so far; plenty of sun, surf and beach time  but these are countered by hundreds of bug bites, sweaty nights and rice for every meal, lol.

But to give a clearer picture I’ll try to lay things out on a day-to-day basis.

After starting this blog sitting in Shianoukville we met up with some of the other volunteers and went to get the boat to the island. Having expected something fairly big is was an interesting surprise to see we would be making the 2hr crossing in a small craft called a long tail. These are small, low draft boats about 6m long powered by single tuk tuk motor with a long propeller shaft. The journey that then commenced was equal parts relaxing and terrifying as we calmly crossed the harbour and then headed out into open water where waves rocked us the whole way, splashed over everything and came close to nearly tipping the boat on several occasions, really good fun though, and we arrived at the island just as the sun was setting over the bay.

Friday started with a quick tour of the village and project, where there is currently quite a large number of volunteers, about 20, and then we just chilled all day to recover from the journey. Also on arrival we found out it was Chinese New Year all weekend so much partying was to be expected. So in the evening we headed into the village and spent the evening drinking ‘Whiskey Cambodia’, a home brewed rice wine, in a bar called Hurs.

Weekends here are also rest days so Saturday we just chilled out in hammocks most of this day, swam in the sea and chatted to folks. Sunday was again very relaxed, I went for my first snorkel on one of the reefs, saw lots of small fish but couldn’t really identify them, and loads of large, black sea urchins.

Monday was our first real day, started with a beach clean up, finding more shoes than seemed reasonable and other weird debris which seems to be everywhere unfortunately. Then photographed a few folks peir jumping and another party, as it was the islands medic Nat’s birthday. Weekdays tend to start with breakfast around 8 and then jobs begin at 9, as well as beach clean we have made F.N.F’s (Fishing Net F******) and been on a jungle survey. The majority of this week though has been spent studying up for us to begin our diving, which has been a lot of reading. We also had a more in-depth look round the village with a guy called Simon who showed us the school and the villages dam, etc. Both of these I think we hope to help improve during our time here. After all the reading we got our first lesson on Thursday and went over all of the equipment for diving and started learning basic skills, such as clearing masks, breathing control and using a regulator and alternate reg, which meant changing air sources under water, which was an interesting experience. Overall though the dive was awesome and I think we’re both itching to get on with the next session (or it could be the bites, lol). One other cool thing I saw the other night was that if you swim at night, as a few of us did, the water has amazing plankton in it which flash and sparkle every time you move as if the water is full of small stars turning on and off, one of the most beautiful things I think I’ve ever seen.

So thus ends the 1^st week, will keep trying to get updates out regularly and fingers crossed there will be plenty to share in the next thrilling instalment

Chow for now :D