Weeks 4-5

We’ve had another busy couple of weeks of project work and outreach. Following our presentation at ROAYA last Saturday night, we were back to research diving and snorkelling. On Monday, Fraser and Lauren were very lucky and spotted a turtle cruising along on the house reef during their hawkfish dive. We all then returned to ROAYA for an open night as the staff and students celebrated the start of their new curriculum. On Tuesday, whilst the rest of the team caught up with analysis in the lab, Robbie, Hannah and Lewis headed out gather camera drop data. On their way back, they spotted two turtles and a dugong in the harbour!

On our day off last Wednesday, a few of the girls completed another depth progression dive for their sports diver qualifications, then joined Lauren on the house reef to celebrate her 200th dive and Rosie’s 50th.

In the afternoon, the team carried out a Dive Against Debris. These take place monthly on the house reef, this time we collected over a hundred pieces of fishing line, as well various bits of plastic. We then tallied up our findings and submitted a report.

Over the next few days we continued data collection as normal, then on Saturday we all took part in a mangrove clean up with some volunteers from Roaya. After only 40 minutes we filled over 30 bags, but there was still so much work to be done. We were all saddened by how much litter was there – unfortunately we could remove was only a small fraction of the full amount, so we will be returning soon.

For our day off this Monday, the team had an early start and headed to the ancient city of Luxor. Our first stop was to the Valley of the Kings, a burial ground for pharaohs and kings from the 16th to 11th centuries BC. Tombs were excavated into the limestone rock of the mountain, and we were able to go inside 3 – Ramesses IV, Ramesses IX, and Merenptah.

The team outside Queen Hatshepsut's Temple

We were blown away by the ornate symbols and depictions which covered the walls, and the bright colours which remain after thousands of years. Next, we stopped at an Alabaster workshop, where we were shown the process of producing intricate pieces of artwork from rock, and a few team members bought some very unusual souvenirs!

Next we stopped at Queen Hatshepsut’s temple, then after lunch went on a boat ride along the Nile. Our final stop was the very impressive Karnak temple. Walking through the maze of ruins and columns felt like we had stepped back in time to when it was built over 2000 years ago.

Now that we are approaching our final week here in Egypt, everyone is working hard to gather all the data needed before we leave. We’re looking forward to a games workshop with ROAYA at Roots camp and another mangrove clean up, as well as soaking up the last of the Egyptian sun!