One week in!

It's been a few days now, so it's probably time I caught up. Things have been busy here in Reth, the public awareness side of things is pretty much in full swing now, we are doing 6 slide shows a week and the kiosk is open 12 hours a day. The monitoring work will start on Sunday, which is when things will get really busy!

Last Sunday saw my first encounter with an adult Loggerhead Sea Turtle, unfortunately, it was a dead one that had washed up on the beach near our base, Camping Elizabeth. There were no obvious reasons for it's death, but the decay and amount of flies told us it had obviously been dead a while and just blown in with the wind we had last week. As is usual in these situations, the Port Authority are informed and they arrange for it to be measured and then the Municipality will bury it.

I have spent most of this week in the kiosk training the new staff, we've had a steady flow of new volunteers, and we are now up to 12 volunteers here, but I will be taking 3 of them with me to Chania on Tuesday. I have also been going along to some of the slide shows, as I'll need to start doing them myself soon. I really want to get over to Chania now, it will be hard work as we will need to get the camp built up, the kiosk built and start work on the PA stuff, but I want to be on my own site. I will also need to start doing the Chania monitoring work pretty soon – the first nest in Greece (in Zakynthos) has already been laid!

World Turtle Day (Or, Myrtle's decline into alcoholism)

Apparently it's World Turtle Day, we actually only found out, or remembered about it today. So in place of actual prepared celebrations, we had a good meal, followed by raki - the cheapo awful stuff you can buy for 2 Euros in an unmarked plastic bottle! Most of the volunteers haven't had this before – and they all hated it. However, Myrtle really let herself go and really enjoyed the celebrations, but I think had perhaps a little too much.

Today has been the best day so far, had a gyros after kiosk, the wind has dropped, and we could finally have a swim in the sea! We start doing slideshows on Monday, and hopefully start monitoring work in a week or so, I'm hoping I can do some here before I leave for my project. The first Chania volunteer starts tomorrow, but we still won't be starting until there are a couple more.

Ooh, Sunburn!

Last year I managed to go the whole 5 weeks without getting sunburnt, this year, I haven't even managed 24 hours. The culprit is the kiosk. I wasn't really expecting to be building it for 4 hours in the middle of the day, and I forgot to wear a hat, which means burnt scalp – brilliant!

I've been here a couple of days now, and I'm starting to get back into it. I have just done the first kiosk shift, which went well, we were “donated” a total of 68 Euros, not bad for the first kiosk shift of the year. There are only 9 of us at Rethymno so far, and only 2 English, the other, typically, is from Hull – can't get away from the place!

I have a meeting with the Crete co-ordinator later today to discuss what we are doing with Chania, I believe I'll be going over to start the project there on the 30^th of May, but nothing has been decided yet. In the meantime, I'm pretty happy being at Reth!

I'm Here, Well, Nearly...

I've just arrived at my hotel for tonight in Heraklion - Hotel Rea, it's nothing fantastic, just a simple cheap place to stay for the night. Complete with bed, showers (not all hot...), breakfast and the suprising bonus of free wifi - so I'm making use of it whilst I can!

I arrived in plenty of time for my flight from Leeds Bradford (Thanks Helen!), and after stumping up an extra 16 quid because my bag was overweight, I proceed through security, sure enough as soon as I walk through the gates all sorts of lights start flashing and sirens go off. After a thorough examiniation I convince security I'm not a terrorist and they let me through. Apparently the studs in my jeans set off the alarms.

By the time I get in to the lounge area, we're told our gate will be announced "shortly", only to be then told it's going to be delayed by an hour. Not a big issue, I grab a Pear Cider and a sandwich from the bar, and watch a couple of episodes of 2 and a half men on my laptop.

The fight goes pretty smoothly, until I reach baggage reclaim, and discover that somehow the great big converyor belt monster has eaten my sleeping bag, which was straped to my backpack - must have been quite delicate too, the straps are neatly folded back up. I hang around until verything has come out and check lost & found with no luck. Ah well - It could be worse, it could have been my tent!

So I'm gonna get my head down now, don't have much to do tomorrow except get over to Rethymno, and maybe replace my sleeping bag. I'm gonna dream about my first Mythos, and first Gyros of the trip!

14 Days and Counting

Right, so it's 2 weeks to go.

I've got the official invite, I've booked my flights, the leaving do is organised and I've bought a tent (it's just like Brian's 'Party Tent' from last year!)!

Now all I can do is count down the days - 14 to go, only 9 of them actually in work!

Can't wait :D