Lovin' The Quest

So its DRP time and everyone seems to be scattered around all the time. None of the groups schedules really mesh together well so it’s interesting to figure out when you can actually hang out with people outside your own research group. It does kind of suck that this how we are spending our last month here. We finally get to know everyone pretty well, especially after the 3 weeks of close quarters in the South Island, and all of a sudden we are split up. Three of the groups left this week to go to their respective places for data collection. My group, marine debris, and the education team are staying at the quest. Unfortunately the education group is literally staying at here 24/7, we at least get to travel to a few beaches during the day.

Marine debris is turning out to be quite hysterical, our data collection is anyways. Our methods for rubbish collection is basically 4 people walking with 3m horizontal sticks protruding from our backpacks side by side down a 500m long transect line. It’s quite the site to see. I carry my ihome in my backpack so whoever is in my group gets the jams :) Sorting through the rubbish is pretty interesting as well, usually very smelly, but we get to see everything people collected. The first day we found a dried up baby hammerhead shark. Obviously it didn’t count in our data but it was really cool none the less. We’ve found some huge aquaculture ropes, rusted engines, clothing, disgusting nappies (diapers) and who knows what else. We are planning on decorating the wet lab (our work place) with our treasures, or at least I am planning on it, haha.

Friday night we went to a Cheifs rugby game. SO MUCH FUN. And SO unbelievably intense. Those guys are beasts, legit, they are huge. They were playing South Africa (Bulls) who are apparently one of the best teams in South Africa. We lost but it was close for awhile, some really awesome plays. There are like 6 of the All Blacks players on the Cheifs which was awesome. I really wanted to see an All Blacks game, but I’m really glad I got to see the Chiefs!

Instead of writing the introduction to my paper yesterday (which ended up to be 7 full pages, just the intro…holy crap) I went kayaking with a few people to the shipwreck again. The tide was lower than the first time I went so it was cool seeing more of the ship. Afterwards we went to fish & chips. SO GOOD. They are apparently the best in New Zealand which I don’t have a hard time believing. I have a feeling I will be there every weekend until we leave. Probably not a good idea.

I realized the other day that I am roughly only half way through my time away from the states. Everyone keeps talking about 3 more weeks here and then they are going home, I tend to forget that I am not leaving yet, haha. Ten more weeks in Australia, wow! Everything seems to be playing out well with that so far though; it has been a bit stressful trying to figure out all the grant stuff but hopefully it’s just about done! I should be doing some really awesome field work while I am there in addition to the project I am doing. I can’t wait! :)


Marine Debris and our sticks


Its a tough life


RUGBY!