Living together in the program house

The volunteers at Ocean Spirits cut across all age, sex and professional lines, but have one thing in common – a love of animals and the outdoors. We spent a hilarious evening once looking at favorite animal videos on YouTube. There are five of us in this first batch – 3 men and 2 women ranging in age from 18 to over 60 (what a great thing to do once you’ve retired!), and with backgrounds as diverse as medicine, high-school and managing a shop. Since there are 4 supervisors, it’s a small group, and we’ve got to know each other quite well, and some have some very interesting stories (for example, from being a dealer in a high-end casino). Predictably, there are different personalities among the group, but we have so far managed to get along and maintain mostly companionable relationships.

There are two 3-bedroom houses, with two supervisors in each. Two to three volunteers share single-sex rooms and a bathroom. A large living room has books from volunteers past, and a data entry table, there is a small bright kitchen and an equipment room where everything is helpfully drawn on a wooden board and labeled. Despite the warmth here, I’m only just getting used to the cold showers (sort of), and have moved on from inching in with feet and elbows. Its not high-end luxury, but clean, airy and comfortable with as you know, a killer view.

Equipment board

The household chores are divided up each week and include things like cleaning the floors, cleaning the sand out of the car, and cooking and clean up (2 people per evening who are allowed to put on whatever music they like while they’re at it).  The turtle-related activities are morning survey on Bathway beach (2 people per day), night survey on Levera beach (5-6 people per night), preparing kit bags for night survey, and beach profiling (team of 5). During beach profiling, we use fixed markers spaced 30 m apart (labeled A to Z) to measure the distance that the vegetation has grown and to the storm line (highest point that the waves have reached on the beach). This is to measure how the beach changes over time. We use these same markers to measure the location of each turtle’s nest, so that 1) the turtle’s hatchlings can be identified or 2) if the hatchlings don’t come up the nest can be dug out to see what happened.

The workload isn’t much and is actually enjoyable. Because each person is head chef only once a week (and sous chef a second day), the dinners are excellent and creative. Breakfast and lunch are prepared individually from common food (anything without a name on it) in the fridge. Hence, people label everything from beer to bananas (I’m not kidding!). There is room for interaction as well as for individual space should anyone want it. The place runs like a well-oiled machine (except of course when some idiot sticks a cheese roll in the toaster or leave gobs of food on the counter). But we get over it and things stay generally sunny.