Earthwatch!

I think I am going to start by typing out an entry from my written diary:

"Monday 11th December 2006
I am sitting at camp in Sepopa with an impending storm over the horizon. The trees are rattling and it sounds like rain, but so far it is only the leaves and the thunder threatening. Beautiful strobes of lighting keep teasing us. I say teasing because we have just been sitting on the boat with our cameras and shutter fingers poised. No luck. The sky is dark as it inevitably seems to get in Botswana. We are at the start of the rainy season. I enjoy these storms, the dry ones. The air is cool as it will get in the summer of a tropical country, and the sky is dark as it will get in the day.
We just went looking for crocodile nests, but couldn't find any where they were meant to be.

But it was a unique experience to walk through the river bank. The grasses are so tall, like you could never imagine. And like bamboo, but with wheaty tops. They shush and sway in the wind like they are telling us to be quiet. We followed hippo paths, deeply trodden and snaking through the bush. I basked in the excitement of the prospect of finding a hippo around the corner (as well as the sun). Thankfully there were no hippos around any corner else I may not have been back to write this!
When I got back to camp I swept the Kalahari sands from the front of my tent and raced in - half in the hopes of out running mosquitoes that might have been trying to follow me in, and half in the hopes of getting in before it started bucketing. It's getting dark now and still no raindrops. I'm kind of hoping it was all for show (but what a show it was!). There isn't much that can compare to being in a place where the skies are so big, you can watch the storm rolling in from over the vast horizon."

Now if that is not enough to reel you into signing up for an Earthwatch program, or at least coming to Botswana, i don't know what would be! The croc experience gets cooler and cooler every time I describe it to someone. I knew working with crocs was cool, but you really don't realise just how unique an experience it is and how lucky you are to have done it until you tell other people about it! some of the reactions you get! yesterday a some people asked me to join them for dinner and they asked me what i'd been doing for the past few weeks. i said helping some researchers collect data on nile crocodiles... and of course immediately they both sat bolt upright and after a brief moment went on to ask: 'and what exactly does that entail?'
'Umm, catching them, getting blood, urine, and measuring them, weighing them and stuff'
'i see'
haha!

Everyone I have spoken to asks so many questions and I really don't know how to convey it to you guys since you can't really ask me questions on my blog! so I'll just explain. Basically, we went out in the nights. Most people don't realise we go out at night but we do (or did, i should say) at about 8:30pm we'd leave and we'd be back at around 3 or 4 in the morning, and then we'd do lab work for about half an hour before going to bed. Basically we did it at night I think because its actually pretty hard to spot crocs in the day.

They seem to tend to hang out in the reeds or near the banks and all you can see is one eye. At night we could use the spotlight and a red shine comes back. If we kept the spotlight on, most of them would sort of stay there, even until we got right up to them. Then, Kevin would grab the croc around the neck and voila! A caught croc. Obviously i'm talking about the little ones.

With the bigger ones Kevin would noose them and the moment he pulled the noose tight there would be a terrible thrashing around and lots of commotion at the front of the boat. The big girl was the most interesting. I happened to be spotlighting so I got front row seats! Up til this point, we had only caught crocs that were over 2 metres. Let me tell you now... and extra metre is a WHOLE different story! Even with the two metre ones, they'd snap their jaws and you'd think oh yeah they're pretty snappy you'd get quite a few sharp punctures if your hand got in there. With this big girl (3.3m) when she slammed her jaws shut they really, really slammed. You could hear the bone  (top and bottom part of the skull) smacking against each other, it was so intense. And it was the first time I sort of thought wo, this is actually quite dangerous. 3.3m by the way made her the second biggest croc they've ever had in the boat for the four years they have been here. Woohoo for us! They have caught bigger ones I believe, but by baiting/trapping, which we didn't get to do because the water was too high and they lost a lot of their nice sand banks where they used to set traps. Anyway, to continue...

Of course it had to be the biggest croc that didn't get tired. With the 2.3m and 2.6m crocs they were so tired, we actually have photos where all we have is a hand (or sometimes even just a finger) on their backs. We were so relaxed because the croc woudl literally just lie there. no drugs, no nothing. what happens with the big crocs is Kevin nooses them, then Audrey backs up the boat so the croc has to swim. When its tired enough (but not so tired that it drowns) then he's pulled into the boat.

I will never forget peering over the boat when the big girl was noosed. I was standing at the front of that boat, shining the spotlight into the murky water. Kevin was next to me, pulling and pulling on this long rope that seemed to go on forever. Then slowly, slowly out of the depths emerged this crocodile, teeth bared and claws gnarly with attitude. But frozen. she was sort of all tangled and frozen in this pose with rope wrapped around her everywhere. it was like what i'd imagine towing a dinosaur that had been cryogenically frozen would be like. Every so often she would sort of swirl and rotate in the water with the massive head and the staring, slitted eyes would be watching. always frozen. Then a claw or a tail would surface, curling around. And when you saw the size of that claw you knew she was big.

It is really a priviledge to see these animals up close. it's really like looking at a living relic. Running your hand along its jaw and feeling each massive tooth, stained, with age and use, you feel like you're touching a dinosaur. and those intelligent eyes!

That's not to say the little ones weren't equally cool. I love the littlies, they are so, so cute. And clean, all of them were really clean, somebody asked me if we got really dirty and I said no, actually some of them are cleaner than some people I have bumped into aha.

. ahem sorry. Another interesting thing is that it was really awesome to compare the little ones to the big ones. Because of course they have all the same things.. the same type of patterns, that plate on the head, but it was so interesting to see what the same part of the body looked like on a bigger croc. Like the scutes on the back legs for instance, you'd barely notice them on the little ones but on the big ones they're like fins!! And the horny bit above their eyes, that gets more pronounced the bigger they get.

What else, oh! Catching one was an awesome experience, my catch was particularly cool because it was this croc in the middle of the river and so when Audrey drove past him I was able to lean out of the boat and scoop him out. It all went very smoothly and it was a very cool experience.

I'll tell you what, the crocs are one thing. But being on the Okavango in the middle of the night, on its own, its quite something. There is simply nothing you can compare it to. The skies are so, so big. You can see for so far. the moon rising was truly surreal. blood red, and big as anything, rising up so quickly you'd think it was in a hurry. it was really like nothing i'd ever seen. And when we turned the spotlight, the motor, our headlamps off, it was just black. Black, but the starriest nights. so, so many stars. and so many shooting stars! The African night sky is really magical. when you turn the motor off, sometimes you can hear the frogs. frogs that sound like wind chimes, its so musical and unreal. It really does sound like clinking of chimes. The whole panhandle experience at night was just something. It alone is something. The crocodiles makes it a truly unique experience that I guarantee you will not get anywhere else.

And the best thing is that you feel like you're helping. i don't know if, other people think the same thing but sometimes i think to myself. what the hell am i doing. I'm here. i have good intentions (i.e. wanting to save the planet), but i have no idea how to do it. The lovely thing about this Earthwatch expedition (and I'm sure many others) is that its really special because you can see that what they are doing here is, well, it's actually working. And that is quite something. Kev and Audrey also said that at the end of all this, Alison Leslie who is in charge of this whole operation is apparently going to take bits of all the researchers projects to form a proposal to get one of the channels, called the 'Philippa channel' to be made into a sanctuary.

so, i don't know. it's just really satisfying to know that projects like this are actually working, and that you've helped, in two ways; by paying the money to actually be there, which helps buy all the tents and equipment etc, and by actually being there.

The thing I loved about Crocodiles of the Okavango was that it was so hands on. Being on the last ever group I wondered if it would be any good, if we would actually make any difference. But apparently Sven is still finishing off his PhD and so the data we collected (39 crocs in the two weeks) would be used by him... also it is good to know that Kev and Audrey are planning on continuing this study in Zambia on the Lower Zambezi. Sounds pretty exciting, apparently it might turn out to be another Earthwatch project that people can volunteer for, which would be awesome.

Well, I guess that's all for now, you might hear more from me, or if not feel free to post questions on the 'comments' or just email me and I'll reply up here on the blog. I just thought i'd finish off with another excerpt from my written diary, here goes:

"Wednesday 20th December 2006
Wow. Only 5 more days to go. It seems so soon. It's bittersweet, leaving Africa. On the one hand, I am ready to go home, and be with people I love, people that I have known for more than three weeks. Africa has been really interesting for me. I really, really thought I'd jumped in the deep end before I came. I was so scared of leaving. Africa. The dark continent. Just thinking of all the stigma that surrounds it made me nervous. All the things that could kill you just from stepping in a puddle!
I have to describe Botswana as I have seen it, before I leave. The panhandle area is simply amazing. People can talk all they like about East Africa but Southern Africa is a truly unique environmental experience. For a vast stretch of land, all you can see for several kilometres is papyrus, masses and masses for as far as the eye can see. The skies are so big, you can watch storms in the distance. What is truly magic is that sometimes those storms are so silent. You sit on the banks of the river and way, way in the distance you can see these fabulous lighting flashes. And with the great Botswanan sky, which is inevitably rich with the most dramatic clouds and skyscapes you will ever see on this planet, the lightning lights up the most awe-inspiring stage nature has ever presented. The lighting flashes here are so big, they really light up entire sections of sky. So bright, it is as if for that moment, it has turned into day. You can see trees, clouds, birds, all as clear as day for that split second. There was a great tropical storm in Maun last night. As I paced over to my tent I had to cross the open bit of Audi Camp where all the cars make u-turns. Just an open little bit of sand and with the lightning above and all around me I didn't need a torch at all and I tell you what, I have never felt more like I could have been struck by lightning."

Rest assured I did not get struck by lightning, obviously. Sorry some of my entries sound so corny but its really difficult to describe something so awesome without sounding a little tacky. It's because everything here is so amazing its might sound a little unbelieveable. But there's really no other way for me to say it. Ok, I think i'm going to leave it at that. But really, any questions, just comment on here, or email.
Ciao!