Wednesday 5th November, from the base camp in Urisa.
There you go, it was enough to write that it hadn’t rained for two months for it to start raining. The day is overcast, stormy, with many rainy periods.
It is punctuated by a few minor problems with the zodiac boats: one of them sank into the mud and we struggled pushing it back into the water, while the propeller of another one broke.
At the camp, “pa’Doc” Jean, our physician, is really busy: he takes care of injuries and insect stings, does bandages, puts cream on sunburns, gives tablets to those who need them, and distributes doxycycline pills against malaria every evening.
Jean at work – Copyright : S. Quérouil / IRD
Tonight, we have the visit of the divers. They temporarily abandoned the sea to dive in caves and map their topography. They tell us about their diving experiences near Pulau Adi. They are not very enthusiastic: the water is cloudy, while the sea floors are sandy, sparsely populated and very monotonous. However, they were able to observe beautiful specimens on the surface: dolphin shoals, sharks, and a turtle laying eggs on the beach…
Our LIPI colleagues wrote for us a short summary (in English) to present their work in Lobo :
(translated by Roxanne Barosi, Ericka Gaudillère, and Nathan Mazet, L2 SVC–Life & Earth Sciences–UM2, France)