Emma Farrell's Blog, page 2

Day 9: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary – The Olive Ridley Project

Day 9 and Pash is getting into a routine now! We might even struggle to get her to come home, despite all those blisters from raking sand and cleaning tanks!

After over a week at the centre, I had begun to get into a routine. The day starts with cleaning and drying of the sides and tops of the tanks, and putting out the patient signs for guests to read.

Each patient has their own sign complete with their name, sex if known, weight, location of where they were found, date of arrival and other in...

Day 8: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary – The Olive Ridley Project

Day 8 and a supermodel volunteers for a day, a bird visits the sanctuary for drink, a turtle loses part of it’s shell and Pash searches for Harry…all in a day’s work at the Olive Ridley Project!

The day started rather bizarrely with a non-turtle patient. One of the resort staff rushed in with a small parrot-like bird (not a native species!).

Many Maldivians keep birds as pets, as dogs are forbidden in the Maldives, and most resorts don’t allow cats. The bird had been found in the sea – in the s...

Day 8: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary ��� The Olive Ridley Project

Day 8 and a supermodel volunteers for a day, a bird visits the sanctuary for drink, a turtle loses part of it’s shell and Pash searches for Harry…all in a day’s work at the Olive Ridley Project!

The day started rather bizarrely with a non-turtle patient. One of the resort staff rushed in with a small parrot-like bird (not a native species!).

Many Maldivians keep birds as pets, as dogs are forbidden in the Maldives, and most resorts don���t allow cats. The bird had been found in the sea ��� in t...

Day 7: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary ��� The Olive Ridley Project

Day 7 and today Pash convinces Honu to eat crayfish, tells us about the sanctuary favourite among guests – Disco,�� and how the resort marked the world wide event Earth Hour.

Saturday saw medication for Amber, Sunan and Maadhu. Some wound care was also performed, checking stitches, scar tissue and so on. New arrival Honu still hadn���t shown much interest in food, but today the kitchen had some left-over crayfish, so I decided to give it a go and see if she would eat. Miraculously, she finally s...

Day 7: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary – The Olive Ridley Project

Day 7 and today Pash convinces Honu to eat crayfish, tells us about the sanctuary favourite among guests – Disco,  and how the resort marked the world wide event Earth Hour.

Saturday saw medication for Amber, Sunan and Maadhu. Some wound care was also performed, checking stitches, scar tissue and so on. New arrival Honu still hadn’t shown much interest in food, but today the kitchen had some left-over crayfish, so I decided to give it a go and see if she would eat. Miraculously, she finally star...

Day 6: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary ��� The Olive Ridley Project

Day 6 and after those demon caterpillars yesterday, Pash needed to pull her big girl pants up and get on with the tasks of tank cleaning, sea swims and turtle Tetris! Also Maadhu needed surgery on her flipper.

Overnight, the caterpillars got me. I don���t know how, I don���t know why, but they got me. I woke up with very itchy red blotches all down both arms, scattered over my legs, on my stomach, back, back of my neck, hands, fingers, toes and even the soles of my feet! I don���t know what thes...

Day 6: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary – The Olive Ridley Project

Day 6 and after those demon caterpillars yesterday, Pash needed to pull her big girl pants up and get on with the tasks of tank cleaning, sea swims and turtle Tetris! Also Maadhu needed surgery on her flipper.

Overnight, the caterpillars got me. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but they got me. I woke up with very itchy red blotches all down both arms, scattered over my legs, on my stomach, back, back of my neck, hands, fingers, toes and even the soles of my feet! I don’t know what these male...

Day 5: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary – The Olive Ridley Project

It’s already day five and today the sanctuary is under attack from…. caterpillars! Not only did the centre suffer from terrible storms overnight but the caterpillars were everywhere!

Pash was not impressed!

Day 5

Caterpillars of death

The storm raged pretty much all night, and the centre looked like it had been ransacked over night. There was so much to do, but the most pressing thing was to rid the centre of caterpillars.

Here, I need to have a rant about these damn caterpillars. The Maldives a...

Day 5: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary ��� The Olive Ridley Project

It’s already day five and today the sanctuary is under attack from…. caterpillars! Not only did the centre suffer from terrible storms overnight but the caterpillars were everywhere!

Pash was not impressed!

Day 5

Caterpillars of death

The storm raged pretty much all night, and the centre looked like it had been ransacked over night. There was so much to do, but the most pressing thing was to rid the centre of caterpillars.

Here, I need to have a rant about these damn caterpillars. The Maldives a...

Day 4: Volunteering at Turtle Rescue Sanctuary – The Olive Ridley Project

Already four days into Pash’s volunteering experience and she has done and learned so much!

Today it was all about turtle spas, duck dives and surreal lightening!

Day 4

Day 4 started with a spa day for Azura and Disco, who is one of the juvenile turtles. At sea, turtle are kept spick and span by pilot fish – juvenile fish that accompany the turtles on their epic journeys across oceans. This is a symbiotic relationship. The fish are afforded a safe host and can eat scraps the turtle drops (turtle...