Beach cleans ups and diving in Mauritius

COUNTRY: Mauritius
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Marine Conservation
WRITTEN BY: Emalyn, Jessie, Nikola, Amelia, Tash and Dani

The second week of the gaggle’s temporary migration to the island of Mauritius brings many exciting new experiences. They start the week with more data collection on the beautiful, yet threatened, coral reefs of Blue Bay. Having now perfected their fish identifying and counting techniques, the gaggle can complete their transects much more confidently and, hopefully, more accurately.
Due to the nature of their volunteer work, the gaggle must adapt their waking hours to the tide, so they are at their most active when the tide is high and fish counting is possible. Unfortunately this means that for the next week, the gaggle must get up early to start work at around 9am.

On Wednesday the gaggle expand their territory to include the town of Tamarin, where they take a break from their underwater escapades to educate the public about the importance of conserving Mauritius’ marine environment. They join forces with fellow conservation tribes, such as the Mauritius Marine Conservation Society (MMCS) and Quicksilver to promote marine conservation to passersby at a local shopping centre. The gaggle soon prove to be particularly adept at this task, as it involves two things that they, being females, are particularly good at: talking and playing with children. The gaggle perform services such as face painting, whilst members of the MMCS give educational presentations and colouring in competitions to the local children of Mauritius, as they know the importance of teaching children from a young age about the dangers threatening their local reefs and what they can do to help.

On Thursday the gaggle takes a break from their busy work schedule to learn the art of scuba diving, or for the two of them already possessing their scuba diving qualifications, to improve their diving techniques in a brand new environment. For the beginners, the idea of diving for the first time is exciting and a little nerve-wracking, but they are in good hands and complete their first dive without any mishaps. They are marvelled by the new underwater world that they are exposed to, just a few metres deeper than they can reach by snorkelling. The two diving pros are taken to a deeper site, where they explore caves and underwater tunnels.

Enthralled by the beautiful underwater reefs, the gaggle find an excuse to go diving again on Saturday during a community beach clean. Staff, the gaggle (sporting Australian Flag tattoos and red, white and blue zinc in celebration of Australia Day), and volunteers from the community make sure no part of the beach is left unclean by sending their workers out to all parts of the beach. The experienced divers venture to the deeper sections of the beach to collect rubbish whilst scuba diving, whilst the rest divide themselves between walking along the beach and snorkelling in the shallows. The amount of rubbish the foraging team collects is shocking, but will hopefully send a message to the local community about littering and protecting the reef.

After a long day of picking up rubbish, the gaggle celebrate Australia Day in typical Aussie style, by partying hard in the nocturnal institutes of Flic en Flac, returning home just in time to watch the sun rise over a nice and clean beach.