Science Officer and Scuba Instructor: Fiji Reef Conservation Project
Added to website: 22 July 2004
After a winter of teaching diving in Britain’s murky cold waters the prospect of exchanging my drysuit and thermals for a 3mm wetsuit and bikini in tropical Fiji was too good to be true. But I was on my way for 4 months as a Scuba Instructor followed by a further 3 months as Science Officer at Raviniake, on Castaway Island, Fiji. I arrived with the dive trainees so there was no gentle introduction for me just straight down to work and into the beautiful warm water.
Once dive trainee week was over and the once scuba diving virgins are now fully fledged Advanced Open Water divers, the science begins. As Science Officer I knew that I would be teaching the volunteers the species they would need to be able to recognise and the techniques required to complete the surveys, but when presented with a list of 126 fish species, 40 coral species, plus numerous invertebrates and algae I began to wonder how I was going to learn it let alone teach others! However, numerous SO’s before me have invented many ways, usually distasteful and rude, of remembering them all making the whole process most amusing.
My role as SI was somewhat shorter than originally planned and after 2 weeks in Raviniake my SO hand over began. Survey techniques were learnt and taught to volunteers, survey dives were planned and executed, new survey sites were opened and completed sites closed. Data collected was checked, entered and passed on to London for analysis and reports were written.
Being involved in both Scuba and Science training makes for a busy time, but living on a tropical island, meeting a wide range of people and being able to dive everyday, as my brother put it, ‘you probably have one of the best jobs in the world’!!!
- Jess Batchelor
