Shark Week: Day 1

Shark Week 2017 started with a bang! We have a group of enthusiastic kids from our neighbouring community that often join us for beach cleans through out the year. For the start of Shark Week we decided to take them out to experience the water from a different perspective.

We met in the morning, with a team of volunteers keen to help out. Everyone gathered on our dive boat – the ‘Alfredi’ – and began out journey into the Komodo National Park. We made sure everyone was kitted out in life jackets, and tried to keep the excitement to a sitting down level. This proved to be difficult as many had not been so far into the National Park before and even the ‘adults’ helping out found it difficult to contain their excitement at taking these guys on such an adventure.

Thankfully we had Dimas on board, who these kids clearly have a lot of love and respect for, as he’s been teaching them English for the last few months. He wrote out a short piece of English for them to read out. They did amazingly well and we’re so proud of them!

It came time for them to jump in the water. Everyone was prepared and ready to make sure everyone was safe, but had a great time. There were some comedy life rings around, and everyone strapped into life jackets. There were a few mask issues, but aside from that everyone was so comfortable in the water! We will make underwater ambassadors of these guys in no time! Unfortunately, it was not the day to see any sharks in the water, but a few lucky snorkelers did see a Manta!

As we headed back to the resort, we had some delicious nasi goereng that it was time for everyone to have a nap after all the excitement!

No rest for the wicked though, when we arrived back at the resort it was time for a beach clean! Before the rain hit we managed to clean up 46kg of rubbish and 14kg of reclycling. All those who had been snorkelling with us came to get involved, as well as some of the younger ones who still need to wait a few years before we can get them out in the water. It was great to see them so eager to get involved.

Unfortunately, the rain struck and the beach clean was cut short. But, that didn’t mean the day was over! Dimas sat down with them as went through even more English lessons!

As the evening drew in the kids headed home, and it was time to show our guests what we had been up to through out the day. The aim of shark week is to raise awareness of the unfortunate threats that sharks face, and to change to perception of sharks as an aggressive man eating killer. For the opening of Shark Week we decided to show the opening episode of BBC Sharks – to give people a basic understanding of these graceful and misunderstood creatures.

It was a fantastic start to the week, and we look forward to all that will be going on over the next few days!