Wednesday 22nd October, aboard the Airaha 2.
At last! The explorations can finally begin! We are five days behind schedule, but the impatience felt during these last five days is a motivation for everyone to catch up.
The Airaha 2 takes the marine scientific team to the chosen spot for the first diving exploration. Eric, who is a diving instructor, is the group leader. He supervises everyone’s safety and checks all the equipment.
In the morning, the most experienced divers test the closed-circuit rebreathers. This system allows to dive deeper than with a traditional rebreather, and facilitates decompression while coming back to the surface. Furthermore, as the divers do not release bubbles, they can approach animals more discreetly.
The first boat is ready to go – Copyright : S. Quérouil / IRD
Everyone is very excited because the environment is so full of surprises! There is a lot of plankton near the surface. As we go down, the water gets clearer but luminosity becomes lower. At a depth of about thirty meters, the team finds numerous corals and a plethora of fish.
On our way to the second diving spot – Copyright : S. Quérouil / IRD
The cooks delight us with surprises. As Jacques is fishing our lunch and dinner, Anjas is preparing us doughnuts with pink vermicelli topping.
Catch of the day and doughnuts – Copyright : S. Quérouil / IRD
The back trip is delayed by an unexpected event. The boat gets stuck in the silt. We have to wait for the high tide to be able to get going again !
When we arrive in Lobo, several members from the land team are there to welcome us. They tell us about their day. They have done preliminary explorations of the camp surroundings. Tomorrow or the day after, the mammalogists, the entomologists, the ornithologists and the botanists will go for a 3 to 4 day expedition that will take them up to an altitude of 1000 meters. The speleologists will go on their way to one of the resurgences of the Lengguru river.
(translated by François Kresno-Pandoyo and Grégoire Le Corre, L2 ST–Earth Sciences–UM2, France)