Where are you? What are you doing?? Why are you there???
If you have asked yourself any of those questions while following our expedition, or have realised that you are wondering them now, then this is the blog for you! While I wait for our project leaders to get their acts together so they can update everyone on their research plans, I thought I would throw together a quick blog about Koh Pha Ngan, the Gulf Of Thailand, and why we’re not in Phuket.
If you don’t know who I am, my name is Kerensa and I am the social media and publicity officer on our expedition - basically, I post on instagram/Facebook and write blogs. I didn’t have much to do in the build up to the trip, compared to the likes of the fundraising and grants officers, but my time to shine has finally arrived. I try to stay neutral-ish in my writing but, as you can imagine, that’s not always easy. Unless otherwise stated, I am the author of these semi-regular blog updates :)
We are living on Koh Pha Ngan, an island in the gulf of Thailand in the same archeleago as Koh Samui. In the past, this expedition has been based in Phuket but we found while researching locations that it is currently rainy season in Phuket and the dive conditions are described as being best for experienced divers, which the majority of our team are not. After this discovery, we started to look for locations in Thailand that could facilitate diving and our research took us to Koh Tao. Koh Tao is a small island, also in the archeleago with Koh Samui, that is known for diving. In short, it seemed perfect for our marine research but not for our terrestrial project. It was too small. We needed somewhere to study amphibians and so set our sights elsewhere, landing on the neighbouring island of Koh Pha Ngan.
So, what is so special about Koh Pha Ngan? First and foremost, it is a relatively large, jungle covered island that, as far as we know, has had no amphibian research conducted on it. Not only does this make it the perfect environment to hunt for frogs, toads, salamanders and newts but it means that our amphibian project is novel research. This has meant that finding support has been proving difficult but we have a terrestrial project update in the works and I can guarantee that The Frog Woman (aka Jennifer) will be able to describe her research far more elequantly than I ever could.
frogs, toads and terrestrial things in general
In terms of our marine project, Koh Pha Ngan could not be more perfect. Not only are the island waters home to some incredible reefs but we are working with an incredible not-for-profit organisation called COREsea who have been advising our marine project leaders, Laura and Ashlynn, on their methods and who are providing our equipment and training. We honestly couldn’t be more grateful for all the help they have been giving us. Stephan has been running our team through dive training, including teaching us how to swim properly, while Victoria has been conducting a series of presentations detailing the marine life we will be surveying. Our favourite of these so far has certainly been the coral presentation, particularly as Victoria’s love for all things coral was clear. If you want a marine project update, you may have to wait a little longer but don’t worry, something is coming soon…
diving, snorkelling, boat stuff
In terms of life outside of our research, we’ve had a fair bit going on. Our financial issues seem to be a thing of the past as we have secured some funding from the University but up until yesterday, we have been living in a budget crisis. As a result, we have been eating at home more often than not and have had limited transportation options. On Sunday evenings there is a night market at the beach which sells food, drinks, clothing and has live music and seating along the pier. As you can imagine, we spent last Sunday night sat on the pier eating and drinking and enjoying the bustling community atmosphere. We’ve another one to look forward to tonight and we’re all very excited.
Tuesday the 14th marked the night of the Full Moon Party here on Koh Pha Ngan. In short, it’s a huge party on the beach to celebrate the full moon. There’s food and drink and music and fire skipping ropes…you name it! We teamed up with a selection of people from COREsea, booked a taxi and headed down. We spent the majority of the evening all dancing on the beach surrounded by literally thousands of other tourists (and some locals) having the time of our lives. The entire team agreed that it was one of our best nights so far. A few injuries were sustained over the course of the night, the majority of which came from people falling over on loose gravel as we left the house. We all got back safe and in one piece.
Other than that, we’ve been going to local restaurants and bars, trying different snacks from 7-eleven, hiking and swimming. When you take out the whole research side of things, we’ve been pretty chill. Of course, most of our time is taken up by data collection which generally involves being soaked through; either because you’re diving or because your scrambling alongside a river in 32C heat. Anyway, our project leaders will fill you in with all the juicy details over the next few days (I hope)!
a little bit of everyone and everything
We are also excited to announce that after a morning of essentially fighting with Facebook, we have managed to upload video content to our Facebook page from Instagram so everyone can see what we’re up to. Unfortunately, only three of the four videos uploaded. However, after they tried to take down our entire expedition page, I will take it as a win. All you non-instagram users, head over to our Facebook page and check out our reels.
If you want to be added to our mailing list to have each and every blog sent straight to you inbox, send a wee email to expeditionthailandgu@gmail.com with the subject ’Mailing List’.
We hope to have more than one published blog a week but if you don’t hear from us as regularly as you‘d like, don’t panic! Blogging takes time and sometimes I’d much rather go for a swim than sit in the sun trying to think of what song title to use as the blog title.
All the best from a mosquito devoured Thailand Team
P.S: Congrats to Dylan and Maren for completing their rescue diver course!
P.P.S: Happy Father’s Day to all of our dads/father figures/soon-to-be-dads etc. you guys are great!
Two new rescue divers
Comments